Slashdot Mirror
File Extensions And Monopolies
A_Non_Moose sent us an article from Salon that talks about how file extensions are one of the tools used by Microsoft to extend their mind and market share. It's a very simple idea but its honestly something I'd never thought about. Definitely worth a read, and a few neurons to realize how its really the simplest of things that will guarantee that this monopoly isn't stopped even if Microsoft's deep pockets didn't let them buy the law.
Remember when Netscape and IE fought for .html and URL rights EVERY time you opened them?
RealPlayer, Winamp, Winzip, photoshop, even stupid ass AOL all do this . . .
Installation defaults of all these apps try and steal file extensinos away from programs. Its just a matter of knowing what boxes to uncheck during the installation. Ordinary users simply dont know what they're clicking through during an install.
Once a program gets a hold of an extension its almost impossible for a normal user to fix it. You cant expect users to know where to reassign file extension ownership (in the file association tab under folder options).
This "attempt" at a monopoly through file extensions is something that would only be successful for those who know nothing about the OS at all. Using Win2k as we speak, right clicking on any file and going to "Open with" seems easy enough. Better yet, it has a check box of "use this program to open up the file as default". Very easy. Of course, if no one bothers to look for it, I'm sure it can be considered hard.
I agree that Microsoft does things specifically to retain a monopoly, but does everything it do have that purpose?
I doubt it.
This is just plain ridiculous... I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, but saying their anti-competitive because people would have to spend about 5 min learning how to change a setting, but because they're too stupid or lazy to do so microsoft should be forced to hold their hand while they do it?
What next... Saying that its unfair to have microsoft.com be the default home page for a newly installed copy of ie just because some idiot might want to change it but doesn't want to take the time to figure out how...???
This goes beyond a legitimate argument to just finding something to complain about because complaining about microsoft is the thing to do.
Ben
Scott Rosenberg, the author of the Salon piece, says Windows "makes you go on a mad hunt through menus and folders and options to find the dialogue box that lets you [change the app that opens a given file type]". Well, yes, it does, unless you shift-rightclick a file and use the "Open With..." option.
:-).
This doesn't really weaken Rosenberg's argument, of course, because this is just one of the zillion and three Windows shortcut thingies that Joe Average doesn't know about. Joe's no more likely to use this than he is to fish his way through to the long-form File Types dialogue. But all of us windswept and interesting Slashdotters who choose/are forced to use Windows ought to know it
Dang it, I used to use an Amiga. Directory utilities on the Amiga just looked at the darn file header. Your IFF image could be called notapicture.txt and it'd still display JUST FINE. A 1Gb footprint for WinXP (which, I hasten to add, I _am_ going to install when next I upgrade my Tiny God), and it still can't do that?!
Come to think of it, that'd be an anti-Sircam-ish sort of feature. "You have attempted to open a file whose extension is PIF, but which appears to be an ordinary executable. That's odd. Would you like to check this file against the new and wonderful Microsoft Proprietary Crushing All Opposition Virus Database to see if it's one of the many things that takes advantage of our monopoly almost as well as we do?"
- I've spent months trying to figure out how to turn of auto-indenting in numbered lists within Word 2000 with no success.
- Using typeid() and other RTTI features is disabled by default in Visual C++ 6.0 and requires finding a very hidden, nested menu to turn it on. This took hours to find.
In general most of their products seem to lack a good Human Computer Interaction factor. But to go as far as calling bad design, some sort of attempt to keep a monopoly seems rather excessive to me, especially since it's fixed in Windows 2000 so that right-clicking on a file brings up the shortcut menu complete with an option that says "Open With..." where you can specify what program to open the file with and if you want the program permanently associated with that file extension.I just mailed a letter to the editor of Salon about this article before it popped up on Slashdot. I believe it is dangerous because this whole thing is really a non-issue. File-type mapping is a convience, not a curse, and the article is very misleading about how hard it is to change these mappings...
Below is the text of my letter:
---
I think Scott Rosenberg is way off the mark in his article regarding 'registered file types' for Microsoft Windows. In reality, it is not as hard to change these file mappings as he portrays.
To begin with, the user would very rarely want to change one of these file type mappings; it is the sort of action you tend to perform once and then leave alone. As it is such a rare event, it makes sense for it to be somewhere deeper within the UI than an action that you would want to perform very often. There's only so much space within the UI for quickly accessible items, and they should always be items that are used regularly by a majority of users.
Further, it is a lot easier to change these file-types than he portrays even if you want to change them. Since Windows 98, at least (I don't remember far enough back to know if Win95 supported this), you can right-click a particular file, choose "Open With.../Choose Program" and an easy-to-use dialog pops up which allows you to pick which program to use to open that file-type and even change the file mapping for that file type by choosing 'Always use this program to open these files'. Making this change is not exactly rocket science.
And lastly, while it is true that the process above may not be completely intuitive for new computer users, virtually every application released in the past five years will check the Windows registry to determine file mappings when it is launched and offer the user the option to change these mappings so that the program just launched will become the default for the file-types it supports. When this occurs, it is generally via a simple dialog box popped up when the application is launched, it is hard to argue that this interface is too difficult for users. One of Scott's own examples, RealPlayer, is adamant about informing users of file-type mappings at startup, and offering the choice to remap files to RealPlayer (using a simple Yes/No dialog), ditto for Netscape (and IE), and countless other applications.
I believe Microsoft has many questionable business practices, but file-type mapping is not one of them, and highlighting such a non-issue just detracts from the real problems via crying-wolf-syndrome.
Shift right click, or right click in 2k its quite simple. The standard complaint that users don't know what they're doing thus MS is even more evil because it doesn't pay for a class or whatever is groundless. When someone needs to change the file extension they call their PC-smart buddies or asking on a web board or newsgroup.
This would be monopolistic if MS disabled this fuction, but instead this article is perfect for the mindless MS bashing that makes slashdot look so prejudiced. There are real MS complaints and this isn't one of them.
Maybe I'll get a job at salon. "Hi I'm the Slashdot baiter and I'm thinking of writing something inflammatory about the two button mouse. Think about it dudes, Mac has one button. MS is trying to confuse people for their own ends!"
An analogy:
/*Unix*/
char fname[PATH_MAX]; strcpy( fname, "foo.c" );
char fname[9]; strcpy( fname, "foo" );
char exten[4]; strcpy( exten, ".c" );
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
a right-click should not be considered the primary way to get at a function
And why not? It is right there next to the Left mouse button. Why is it a less valid as a primary way to get at a function? It is only bad GUI design if you can't wrap your brain around more than one button. I suggest you unplug your keyboard and stay away from any mouse with a wheel on it.
On a Mac, without special 3rd-party hack programs (like ResEdit or Snitch), it CANNOT BE DONE AT ALL
Incorrect. Open desired application. From within application, File menu, Open, open the desired file. Now without making any changes to the file, re-save it in the same place with same filename.
Now the file's icon changes to that of the desired application. It now is "associated" with the new app.
This wasn't the most efficient approach, but it was the most obvious. The Mac often wastes computer resources and keystrokes at the expense of saving "brain-strokes". Although, often, if you look deeper, there are numerous shortcuts to do the same thing more efficiently.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Doesn't anyone drag and drop anymore? Wasn't DnD the big advantage to using a GUI?
.html file on to the text editor icon: it's open for editing. Double-click and it's opened by the default browser. Want to see it in an alternate browser? Drag it over to that icon. Drag it over to the printer icon for a hard copy.
On both my Macs and my Windows computers, I use DnD to override default file associations. Drag the
Lately, I've been using DnD to extract strings from all of the Sircam-infected Word documents that show up in my mail by dragging the attachment link embedded in the mail message on to the TextEdit icon in the OS X Dock (not that SecretPlans.doc.pif would execute anyway if I clicked on it).
Why bother with the overhead of having a GUI if you're not going to use all the features?
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
A more technical explanation:
The Mac's file system stores 2 equivalents to the file extension for each file, the type and creator codes. The type code indicates what type of file it is, the creator code indicates the application that created it. The key concept here is that on a Mac, those 2 bits of metadata are orthogonal, and with a simple file extension they cannot be without some serious filesystem hacking, which MS hasn't bothered to do.
Also worth noting that Mac OS X has most of the features this guy requests; you can remap a file's ownership from the Get Info window, and make your change global from the same location.
This, more than the evangelism that goes with the religion, is why I hate Macs.
.html file. But the machine was having none of that. It thought it knew better. "No, no", it seemed to say, "you don't want to be opening that, you don't know where it's been".
.java and .class (and even .rpm - with a cute ickle picture of tux) files look purty by drawing my own icons.
.css can have the same icon as a .php3, but another .css could have the same icon as a .png.
I was first introduced to this when I tried to open an
"Could not open the file because the application that created it wasn't found" (Right before a "Sorry a system error occurred. Error type 7. Restart" - patronising twat of a machine!)
An HTML file for fucks sake! Plain text with markup! Opens in IE, Mozilla or Simpletext. Just open the fucking file!
"Sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that, Dave."
It had a file extension. It was UTF-8. It was a plain and simple bastarding HTML file. And the Mac sat smugly. And refused to open it.
In the end I had to copy it across to a Windows machine and back.
And this guy at Salon thinks that's easier?
In Windows, whenever an app steals a file extension (which only happens during installation, not whenever I open a file), I take it right back, maybe leaving it in as an option on the context menu. I have Notepad on the SendTo menu, so I can always open anything as if were text. I can make
Can I do any such thing on a Mac? No. I'm stuck with the icon whichever app chose for it. If I save an HTML file from dreamweaver, I can't view it in IE without dragging it into an IE window. If I save it from fireworks, it has a different icon again. Very soon it gets impossible to tell the difference between files. A
And that's less confusing?
People are so blinded by Jobs-worship that they forget to realise that someone else is doing The Right Thing. A file type is as distinct from it's creator as it could possibly be. OSX is better, though. Guess what - it uses file extensions when the resource fork is missing. And it lets you change the app a particular file type opened with, relatively easy. But there can only be one app which opens a particular file type. Which is the Wrong Thing.
File types are not a Windows idea. They date from the pre-unix days. It makes it easy to tell what a file is by looking at it's name - handy on a teletype, or even by ftp. It also makes it easy to change a files meaning without changing its content (eg txt to html). It separates the content of a file from the application used to create it.
Another poster noted that you can drag a file onto any applications icon in Mac OS. So? That's not new. Windows does it, and so does KDE (I think - can't check right now).
Registered file types are not a means of Microsoft brainwashing. They are simply the best way to handle file typing (I know that sounds weird). mime-types are fine, until a file has unrecognised type, and is not so easy to change. File type and creator metadata is just plain wrong.
Remember: just because you don't have a clue, doesn't mean Bill Gates is out to brainwash you (hey, that rhymes...).
"I think he was truly surprised at how little I cared about how big a market the Mac had" - Linus on Jobs