Do StuffIt 5.5 archives encode the resource fork safely for transfer to a non-Mac ?

[LaPorta]

Yes sorry I meant plus the MacBinary deal. However, you can always unstuff them on newer macs too.

 

[olePigeon]

I think BinHex 5 offers some some basic compression in addition to encoding.

 

[superjer2000]

But you have to convert them into something other than a .sit to upload them because they have a resource fork.

What's in that resource fork? Will stuffit expander fail to extract an older .sit file that is missing its resource fork? I didn't think that was the case but I could be misremembering.

 

[Crutch]

I don’t think old StuffIt archives used the resource fork for anything.

 

[Phipli]

Correction to my previous posts. Older sit archives do not seem to have a resource fork (tested with DropStuff 4.5) but there still seems to be something that partially corrupts archives left unprotected. This, frustratingly, renders them unusable on older computers or OSes, but they still seem to work on newer setups, and cause arguments.

I don't know why. But... Please wrap your .sits in something. Ideally .bin or .hqx, not because they're "good", but because expander can handle them, and everyone already has expander installed.

 

[LaPorta]

When you say partially corrupts....what are they passing through to cause the corruption?

 

[Phipli]

When you say partially corrupts....what are they passing through to cause the corruption?

I really don't know what is happening.

 

[LaPorta]

Do you mean goes through a PC? Mac to Mac over the web? Just trying to nail down the common denominator.

 

[cheesestraws]

Can you please provide an example of a corrupted one?

edit: by which I mean a corrupted one after you've moved it around your network / stuff for a bit.

 

[Crutch]

Well moving a “bare” .sit archive around without MacBinary’ing it (.sit.bin) will certainly result in loss of type and creator info if moved off of Mac platforms and probably also if sent via ftp anywhere. You can force it back with ResEdit though, or probably force StuffIt Expander to open the untyped file with an option somewhere. I agree that wrapping .sits in .bin is best practice. (Even better practice is to use a self-extracting archive [.sea.bin] because nobody care about the extra bytes of making it self-extracting anymore.)

 

[LaPorta]

Type/Creator is what I’d thought, but I wasn’t sure what “damaged” meant. I guess it’s now clearer when I re-read the original post that it didn’t work only on code-dependent macs.

 

[Phipli]

Please folks. I'm an extremely experienced Mac user. I'm not an imbecile.

 

[cheesestraws]

Please folks. I'm an extremely experienced Mac user. I'm not an imbecile.

I know. That's why I'm asking for an actual example so we can work out what happened. I wasn't casting doubt on your account

 

[Phipli]

Given there are at least three types of file type described by ".sit", can't we all just wrap them in .bin or .hqx?

All you have to do is go to preferences in DropStuff and select .hqx automatically from the options.

Please don't tell me it is a waste of disk space, because it is a waste of time having to sit there guessing what version of stuffit compressed a file, plus what ever odd behaviour causes stuffit to quit itself without decompressing.

It doesn't really matter what specifically causes it if it easily happens, given wrapping the files universally solves it, and removes the need to type the files.

 

[Phipli]

I know. That's why I'm asking for an actual example so we can work out what happened. I wasn't casting doubt on your account

I'll try to put something together, but for me, this was like a month ago, I don't have the machine I was using set up, and have moved the hard disk into another computer.

I'm so used to there been unusable files on Mac Garden that I've given up and I have a Pismo or iBook set up at all times to deal with it.

 

[cheesestraws]

I'll try to put something together, but for me, this was like a month ago, I don't have the machine I was using set up, and have moved the hard disk into another computer.

Well, just next time it happens, send me something? No urgency

My current theory is that this is to do with FTP and line ending conversions and the horrible FTP "text file" mode. FTP is a menace.

 

[Crutch]

I'm so used to there been unusable files on Mac Garden that I've given up and I have a Pismo or iBook set up at all times to deal with it.

I totally agree - the core problem here (and something I rant about too much) is the lack of a good and reliable upload format standard that’s well-supported across platforms. As I said earlier in the thread, there is no reason to use .hqx for anything ever anymore (the point of it was to allow ASCII mode transfers, like uuencode) but wrapping everything in .bin is very sensible and would ideally be done by everyone.

 

[Phipli]

I totally agree - the core problem here (and something I rant about too much) is the lack of a good and reliable upload format standard that’s well-supported across platforms. As I said earlier in the thread, there is no reason to use .hqx for anything ever anymore (the point of it was to allow ASCII mode transfers, like uuencode) but wrapping everything in .bin is very sensible and would ideally be done by everyone.

The reason for using hqx is that it is built into DropStuff, while .bin isn't. It's a laziness thing. Purely - "it was on the OS install disk". I'd have to go and find software to create a .bin.

 

[LaPorta]

Was never supposing you were an imbecile. Just trying to get an accurate description.

 

[Crutch]

The reason for using hqx is that it is built into DropStuff, while .bin isn't. It's a laziness thing. Purely - "it was on the OS install disk". I'd have to go and find software to create a .bin.

That’s a pretty good reason.