botteron@bu-it.bu.edu (Carol J. Botteron) (03/06/90)
In article <53181@bu.edu.bu.edu> I wrote: | ... my MacWrite 4.5 |documents were suddenly listed as "Smilies Document" instead of |"MacWrite Document." When I tried to open them I got a "no |application" message... |About 10 days earlier I had installed System 6.04... The problem is solved, with the help of several kind net people. (Summary of replies at the end of this message.) I still don't understand what went wrong or why the fix worked, but this may still be helpful and/or amusing. None of the relevant information seems to be in the manual or the Mac Bible; is there a reference where "the rest of us" can read about bundle bits and rebuilding desktops? It went like this: Does my hard disk have a document named "Smilies"? Yes, I created it with MacWrite a year ago and haven't looked at it since. It says "Smilies document" and is one of the ones that won't open by clicking. Suppose I launch MacWrite and try "Open" on one of the "Smilies documents." It opens! Close it. Back to the folder: the document still won't open by clicking. People suggested ResEdit ... back when I bought the Mac I bought a batch of software from the Boston Computer Society, in case I might need it ... there's ResEdit! Launch it, find Smilies: bundle bit [X]. Look at an unaffected document: bundle bit [ ]. Aha! Back to Smilies: change bundle bit to [ ]. Save and close: my documents are MacWrite documents again! I guess the bundle bit probably went wrong a year ago and didn't bother system 4-whatever, but under 6.04 it caused trouble. So I guess this shows that things too obscure to be in manuals can still cause trouble. And if the document that went weird had had a name that I recognized as mine, like "Hydrology Lab Report" instead of "Smilies," this would have been much easier to solve. =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o= And now the replies, some of them shortened a bit. Some of these may be helpful to people who run into similar problems. Thanks again to all the people who were kind enough to reply. From: ephraim@Think.COM This is probably not a virus... is there anything named "Smilies" on your disk? It's probably a MacWrite document with the bundle bit inadvertently set. Clear the bundle bit using (ResEdit, FEdit, PC Tools, ...) or just trash the file. Rebuild your desktop file if the other MacWrite documents still don't say MacWrite. From bradley@andromeda.rutgers.edu ... Are you sure that you haven't renamed MacWrite "Smilies" by mistake? From ckd@bucsf.bu.edu Do a "Find File" on "smilies" on your hard disk--sounds like you got a copy of MacWrite on there under that name. [later, after I described the problem and fixing it] The 'bundle bit' tells the Finder that this file is part of a "bundle" and "owns" other files with the same "creator code" (in your case the MacWrite creator code). It's arcana (mostly application-author arcana :-). From: gbc@med.unc.edu You *probably* have some application on your disk called "smilies" which can make documents, but which isn't launchable by double clicking on the application... I think it has something to do with them having similar Creator types... From go@oxy.edu ResEdit might help. Open ResEdit, look for an unaffected MacWrite file, select (not double click) and get info. Note the info in the 'creator' box. Close window. Now do the same thing for an affected file and replace the info in the creator box with the info obtained from the unaffected file. This should make MacWrite launch. From @isy.liu.se:ingemar@rainier.isy.liu.se Check the file type and creator of your files. The MacWrite files should be WORD, MACA and MacWrite itself should be APPL, MACA. You can check with ResEdit, for example. From psu@mtuni.att.com Sounds like someone or some application changed your document's creator type. The creator type is what links your document to your application. When you click on a document, the finder searchs for an application with the same creator type. If it cannot find it, it will return with a application not found. You can look at an application's creator type with an utility like Resedit...