Mac OS X Bug?: MetaCard won't open its own stacks

[John Kiltinen]

This certainly appears to be a bug to me.  I've sent in a bug report, but I
thought I'd ask about it here in case there is something simple that I am
missing.

1.  I am using MetaCard 2.4.3 on a Macintosh which is running under version
10.1.5 of OS X.

2.  I create a stack, save it, and close it.

3.  I then try to open it again using the "Open" command on MetaCard's File
menu.  It shows up as dimmed, meaning it does not get by the filtering for
MetaCard stacks that is built into the Open command's script.

4.  I go into classic mode so that I can start ResEdit.  I open my stack
with ResEdit and find a blank field where the file type should be listed.

5.  I enter "MSTK" into the file type field, and tell ResEdit that I want
to save the changes.  ResEdit comes up with an error dialog saying that the
code is more than four characters, and saying that I may have to clear the
field to get rid of invisible characters.

6.  I clear the file type field and again type in "MSTK".  This time
ResEdit accepts the change and I save the stack file and close it.

7.  I return to MetaCard under OS X.  This time the stack passes the
filtering so that MetaCard itself will open it.

8.  I now do a Save again, but this time after having set the stackfileType
to "PZLJ", which is the file type I want for my application I am building,
and close the stack.

9.  I open the stack with ResEdit again, and, sure enough, the file type is
now PZLJ as I want it to be.  My application's Open command, which filters
for this file type recognizes the stack and lets me open it.

I've run this test under Mac OS 8.6, and the original saved stack does get
assigned the right file type and does reopen, so it appears that this is an
OS X-specific problem.

Any of you seen this problem?

John Kiltinen


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 John Kiltinen (kiltinen at nmu.edu)        Home              Office
 Professor, Dept. of Math. & CS   Tel.(906) 228-8035 or (906) 227-1600
 Northern Michigan University     Fax (906) 228-4667 or (906) 2272010
 Marquette, MI 49855 USA
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