MAC OS X Problems

[Scott Raney]

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 Richard Gaskin <ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:

> >> Yves wants to create new folders in the Finder. A custom font would
> >> require that he set the Finder to use that font, which could
> >> potentially alter any existing folder names containing diatricitals.
> >> If Yves is planning to distribute his stack to others, it would
> >> require that all his users also install the font and risk the same
> >> changes to their existing folder names. I don't see it as a viable
> >> solution.
> > 
> > I think the only good solution is that the Rev team makes it possible
> > again as it was with Rev 1.1.1
> 
> I guess the obvious next question is:  what is different between the 1.1.1
> implementation and v2.0, and what went into the decision to change it?

The difference is that in 2.0 the engine was converted to Mach-O
format and uses UNIX system calls to access the filesystem whereas 1.X
used the older (and slower and much less capable) File Manager calls.
The real problem here is rooted in the circa 1982 decision by the
Apple developers to use a proprietary character encoding for the
Lisa/Mac rather than the ISO standard.  This decision has now bitten
them (and you!) in the ass because the display system uses a different
character encoding than the UNIX filesystem does, making stuff like
this very hard to deal with because you have to do character-set
conversions all over the place.

It should be possible for us to fix or at least work around this in
the engine, but in the mean time using a script-level workaround is
your best bet.
  Regards,
    Scott

> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin 
>  Fourth World Media Corporation
>  Developer of WebMerge 2.2: Publish any database on any site
>  ___________________________________________________________
>  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com
>  Tel: 323-225-3717                       AIM: FourthWorldInc

********************************************************
Scott Raney  raney at metacard.com  http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...