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© Copyright Robert Vasvari, 1993-2003.

MacOS issues

MacBinary Support:

RBrowserLite has fairly good macbin support. It works two ways:
1. If connected to a macbinary-aware FTP server (like NetPrezenz): If the Macbinary option is turned on, RBrowser will send the "MACBIN E" command, then macbinarize on upload WITHOUT changing the filename. On download, and on download ONLY, the name gets appended the .bin extension IF the corresponding option is turned on. Please note the following: RBrowserLite does not unpack the file if you download from one of these servers; you will end up with a macbinary file, with or without the .bin extension, depending on you personal preference settings. We recommend you keep the "Add .bin to filename" option checked to avoid confusing the macbin and regular files.
2. Non-Macbinary-aware FTp server (almost all of them out there):
It is still possible to create macbinary archives for each file uploaded to this server. If the "Add .bin to filename" option is checked, the filename will be appended by .bin on UPLOAD ONLY. The server will treat this as a regular binary file, and not change or interpret it any way. This is a good way to backup macintosh files onto any general FTP servers. On download, these files are not touched in any way, you can unpack them using any unarchiver (like Stuffit).

RBrowser has been tested against the following Mac FTP servers: NetPrezenz, NCSA Telnet and WebTen. Versaterm does not implement all the commands necessary to support RBrowser.

One thing to keep in mind: most Mac FTP servers have trouble with multiple simultaneous connections from the same user. For this reason, when connected to the FTP servers listed above, RBrowser defaults to a single connection.

MacOS and UNIX filesystems are not compatible. To archive a MacOS file on UNIX, use of MacBinary is encouraged. In RBrowser's case, this is really easy. Make sure that the MacBinary support is turned on in the FTP Preferences panel. Then, every time you transfer a file from MacOS to MacOSX, it will be encoded using MacBinary. If you later copy that file back to MacOS, you will get the original file restored (both resource and data forks).

How about using MacBinary when copying a MacOSX file onto MacOS? It is still useful because this way, the correct file type and creator will be assigned, and, most importantly, the file's modification date will be preserved. How does RBrowser know what type and creator to assign? The mappings are listed in a file RBrowser.app/Resources/MacBinaryTypes.dict. Here is a typical line from the dict:

"tiff" = ("TIFF", "JVWR", B );

This maps any .tiff file to have the type "TIFF" and creator "JVWR". The B is binary, the A is ASCII. If the file is ASCII, RBrowser will translate the carriage returns and linefeeds to the MacOS format, so the file will be readable on MacOS.

You can edit this file to add more entries with file types we did not know about. If you do so, please send mail to us, so others can benefit from your additions. Be careful! If the file is not formatted *exactly* as it is now, RBrowser will not be able to read it.