🚀 go-pugleaf

Graham Coles <graham@scitec.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> As a new mac owner, I'm trying to work out how to associate files with
> applications.  If I transfer an mpeg or .mov file from a pc the system
> doesn't know how to run it.  How can I associate these files with a
> quicktime viewer?

Other people have told you how to automate this process.  Here's some
details...  Macs don't do things the same way as PCs at all.  Rather
than depending on a 3 letter extension which maps a particular extension
to a single application, every Mac file has two 4-character codes
attached to it to tell the OS what type of file it is and what
application it belongs to: a creator code and a type code. Each
application also has a type code: if the file has the same creator code
as an application, that file is `associated' with that application.  The
type code says what sort of file it is: TEXT for plain text, JPEG, for
JPEG, and so on.  If you double-click on a file, the Finder looks at the
creator code and tells the matching application to open the file.  The
type code tells the application what sort of data is in the file.

There's quite a few applications that let you edit these codes directly;
QuickInfo and BunchTyper are two that I use.  You can get them from the
Umich mirror at: ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/systems/mac/umich/

btw, the newsgroup uk.comp.sys.mac is a good place to ask this sort of
thing.

Rowland.

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