malis@BBNCCS.ARPA (Andrew Malis) (03/17/86)
I should have mentioned in my previous message to info-mac that I had tried Purgeicons unsuccessfully. I think it only works on MFS volumes. Dave Platt (Dave-Platt%LADC@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA) mentioned that he had seen an Apple tech memo on the subject. Sure enough, I found tech memo 29, which discusses the desktop file resources. The Get Info comments are kept as FCMT resources, one comment per resource. Each resource number is a hash of the object's name (of course, this can lead to collisions, where several files inadvertently share the same comment). I used ResEdit to copy the FCMT resources to a new file (they were only 4K in size), rebuilt the desktop (by holding down option and command after exiting ResEdit), and then used ResEdit again to paste them back in. It worked great, and my desktop file went from 420K to 51K. Andy
comer.pa@XEROX.COM (03/20/86)
Seems to me that it is time that Apple stored the INFO string with the file, rather than on the desktop. It could be easily done as an INFO string in the resource fork of the file, or in the file header. But that information, like the lock bit, should be considered a permanent part of the file, not something that can be trashed at the Finder's whim. Often I use the INFO string as an extended explanation of the file, something too long to put in the file name. It is useless if it can get lost, and likewise if INFO's for distinct files can collide. Amen, scott