Re: Shrinkit.Exe

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Jerry Kindall <kindall@mail.manual.com> wrote:

>supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:
>
>> Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
>> 
>> >The usual snag with using an .sea file you download and transfer to 
>> >your IIgs is that it arrives as a type TXT file. So, the user will 
>> >need to change the filetype to $B3 (S16) in order to execute the 
>> >file and obtain GS-ShrinkIt.
>> 
>> Yes, and if it has passed through a Mac instead of a PC, that text 
>> file is going to have a resource fork in it.  Since changing the file 
>> type without a program to do it usually means going into 
>> Basic.System, a ProDOS 8 program, trying to even access the file is 
>> going to result in an error.
>
>Changing a file's type doesn't involve opening it.  You can change the 
>type of an extended file fine under ProDOS 8.  That just involves the 
>directory entry.

Yes you can IF you have a file type changing program.  Unfortunately,
someone getting ShrinkIt usually has a starter system only.  Thus,
they must use Basic.System to bload the file then bsave it again with
the right file type and that's where Basic.System chokes on the
resource fork.  It is really too bad that Apple didn't ship the IIGS with
a 16-bit CLI instead of with the 8-bit one.

>In any case, a file downloaded to a Mac that doesn't have a resource 
>fork will not magically have one added just because it's been on a Mac.  
>If that were the case, files copied from a Mac to a ProDOS disk would 
>always be useless to ProDOS 8 programs.  Obviously this isn't the case.  
>Just as on the Apple II, it is perfectly legal for Mac files to lack 
>resource forks.

It is the case unless you pass it through ProTYPE, which removes
the forks.  I'm not sure which program does it.  Either Netscape or
PC Exchange.  Somehow, the resource fork appears and messes
everything up.

As a IIGS user, you would of course not notice it because if you use
ShrinkIt GS to open it, it has no problem with resource forks.  But
if you were trying to change the type of the GSHK archive to get to
ShrinkIt GS in the first place from an 8-bit environment, that's where
the chicken and the egg will get you.

>> Thus, why not have a separate archive of GS-Shrinkit just for Mac 
>> users that is stored in DiskCopy format (BinHexed to preserve Mac 
>> types). This way, when a Mac user downloads the archive, he or she 
>> runs it through DiskCopy and the Mac spits out a ProDOS disk with 
>> GS-Shrinkit on it, ready to use.
>
>This is still not a bad idea.  Heck, put the 8-bit version of ShrinkIt 
>on the disk image while you're at it.

That would be nice.  I recommend DiskCopy 4.2, not later versions.
This way, IIGS users with Clone can extract it too.