Over the many years I've been using the Mac I've found the simplest,
fastest, most reliable way to handle these situations is to set the
creator and type correctly. Then Every Mac you move these files to
now and in the future will handle them correctly.
There are several programs that let you do this, but the one I've
been using for many years is Daniel Azuma's File Typer. This comes
with the ability to create Auto Typer "droplets", which are small
programs that change the Creator and/or Type codes of whatever you
DROP onto them to whatever you want. I've created a dozen or so Auto
Typers for the various file types I often encounter, and whenever I
need to I just drag a file (or a whole folder of files) onto the
desired Auto Typer, and a moment later all those files are correctly
set and I generally have no further problems with them.
Yes, it would be better if VueScan let you set some preferences for
how you want the type and creator set, but unless/until that happens
you can still do it yourself as described above.
You can also take this a step further (as I have) for even greater convenience.
There's a Mac shareware control panel named Alias menu which allows
you add menus to the menu bar (which can be available in every
program), where each menu lists the contents of a folder you
designate. I just put all my AutoTyper droplets in one such folder
and instantly have a menu of them that's always available.
Then I add the Mac shareware extension called Glidel. This allows
you to drag files and folders to menu items and have those menu items
act upon them.
Thus for years I've had an extra menu sitting quietly in the menubar
(I named it "Drops"), and whenever I have a file without the proper
creator or type codes I just drag it up to this menu, select the type
and creator I want, and a few seconds later it's set the way I want
it.
--Bill
At 8:46 PM -0500 19-11-01, Julian Vrieslander wrote:
>
>But these files are created with generic file attributes: file type
>'BINA' and creator type '????'. So the files have no icons, and if they
>are moved to another Mac, the user might not be able to open them with a
>double-click.
>
>My preference would still be for VueScan to do this the proper way, by
>setting the desired file attributes, or (if there is a way) for VueScan
>to force Mac OS to set those attributes.
--
======================================================================
Bill Fernandez * User Interface Architect * Bill Fernandez Design
(505) 346-3080 * bill_sub@billfernandez.com *
======================================================================
