Re: Dia-list digest, Vol 1 #758 - 5 msgs

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden schemamania org>]

On 19 Feb 2003 12:29:14 -0800, dialist <pvspam-dialist@hacklab.net> wrote:
> 
> .gz.dia (as you similarly suggest) would still associate the file with
> Dia, which is good, and a human could tell it was gzipped.
> 
> But I don't know that a computer would be able to tell this is a gzipped
> Dia file, and so if you, say, right-clicked it and chose "View as Text"
> it wouldn't know to decompress it first, whereas if you chose say
> ".gzdia" or something similar, it could be taught such.

Hmm.  I guess it's another case of "where you stand depends on where you
sit".  

What we're really talking about, I think, is what two names to use for
these three things:

1.  a zipped dia file
2.  an unzipped dia file
3.  a dia file

Aesthetically, I think ".dia" is really really pretty.  It indicates very
clearly what application created the file (or, anyway, is meant to be used
with it).  It's pronounceable and mnemonic.  It's worth keeping.  Heck,
it's worth trademarking.  

The question is, Is a .dia file -- so named -- zipped or not?  Because
while file(1) can figure that out, many programs dumbly rely on whatever
follows the last '.'.  

For my money, a .dia is zipped, and associated with /usr/local/bin/dia. 
If I want to expressly state its zippedness or lack thereof, I can name it
.gz.dia or .dia.gz or (unzipped) .dia.xml, etc.  

You may say, "I don't care about zipping.  I like my .dia files not to be
zipped."  That's OK, too.  As long as you associate .dia with Dia, you're
in good shape, too.  

Granted, if I mailed you my (zipped) .dia file and you tried to open it
with "view as text" relying your mime setup, you'd be disappointed.  But
we took a few turns to get there: you're relying on my naming convention,
and forcibly interposing yourself between the file and its natural
editor/viewer, Dia.  

Doubtless I've overlooked something.  I'm happy to be corrected; I just
wanted to present my side.  

> It's ugly. I'd actually say given the current mess we're in to create a
> new extension ".gzdia" or whatever, and fix it when filesystems actually
> store MIME types with files. (We'd do away with extensions entirely at
> that time, would we not?)

I believe that's what Macs call a "resource fork" and it's been around 20
years.  Obviously, that's not long enough to gain adoption in these
parts.... ;-)

Regards, 

--jkl