matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews) (12/23/89)
Is the Stuffit! file format (as of version 1.5.1) publicly available? If not, has anyone gone to the trouble to reverse-engineer it? My understanding is that unsit doesn't handle the nested directories added in version 1.5. Jim Matthews Dartmouth Software Development
tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (12/24/89)
In article <18019@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews) writes: >Is the Stuffit! file format (as of version 1.5.1) publicly available? >If not, has anyone gone to the trouble to reverse-engineer it? My >understanding is that unsit doesn't handle the nested directories added >in version 1.5. The documentation to ArcMac claims that StuffIt uses the ARC format. This appears to be false, however; I just tried to use ArcMac on a StuffIt archive and it failed badly. Still, maybe there are similarities. I admit that the real reason I posted this was not to answer your question, but to give me an excuse to bitch about ArcMac, which has now succeeded MacNosy as the most unpleasant program ever created for the Mac. Has anyone else used this thing? (I'm not talking about LaPorte's, which had an OK interface but choked on many legal ARC files, but about Don Gilbert's ArcMac.) It deliberately uses a DOS interface! What's more, and window has neither "more" nor a scroll bar! All commands have to be memorized and typed. He could at least have made it an MPW tool with a Commando interface, but noooo. Here's a section of the manual: ArcMac runs in a subset of the Martian Operating System, named for the reason that it is an obvious alien to the Macintosh graphic & mouse Finder system. MOS (pronounced as "moss") is a keyboard and text based operating system that is patterned closely after Microsoft's MS-DOS (which in turn was patterned after CPM and numerous mainframe operating systems). Though alien to the Macintosh, it is a familiar system to many computer users. The choice of MOS for running ArcMac is purposeful, not mischievious. The reason for producing and releasing ArcMac is twofold, (1) to provide compatibility with the excellent MS-DOS standard file archivers, and (2) to provide an effective and efficient user - operating system interface for such file handling utilities. The current Macintosh file archivers, Packit and Stuffit, are both "good Macintosh" programs, in that they follow guidelines that Apple has established for user interfaces. But they are not efficient to use as file archivers, not because of a failing the [sic] in the algorithms used (Stuffit and ArcMac are based on the same ARC standard), but because the Macintosh Finder interface doesn't provide a proper platform. Telling an application to operate on multiple files, in various subdirectories (folders), in a simple and quick way is not easy for Finder-based programs. You generally have to wade through several dialogs, windows and whatnot, carefully pointing and clicking all the way. There is also no way to do batch operations, that is, process a large number of commands written in a file. Nor is there any easy way to redirect input or output. With a command line operating system that recognizes subdirectory path specifications and file wild cards, you can specify a group of files to process in a few keystrokes. Granted that command line operations are not as self evident as other forms...you require some learning time. But after the learning period is over, it is much faster to use. Thus, ArcMac seems designed only for those who use it repeatedly and are willing to learn its operation. I know none of us are all that happy with Apple lawsuits, but it would be great if they could sue this kind of turkey. (Half-smiley-face.) -- Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com "And did you ever stop to think that Tim may be doing something right by being so controversial? I mean, he may be an asshole but at least he's an intelligent asshole. I do have to admit his articles tend to entertain me, although I kill the resulting flame wars." -- maxc1142@ucselx.sdsu.edu