Re: Nautilus, metadata and extendet attributes

[Olaf Frączyk <olaf cbk poznan pl>]

On Mon, 2004-02-02 at 17:08, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:
> El sáb, 31-01-2004 a las 04:18, Julien Olivier escribió:
> > > Is that a bad joke ? I get nearly *one hundred* Windows virus daily
> > > which exploit the fact that stupid people encoded metadata into the
> > > filename.
> > 
> > What we are ALL waiting for are examples of how using file extensions
> > the way Nautilus plans to do it (in cooperation with sniffing) could be
> > dangerous.
> > 
> 
> If extensions are used for determining file types but sniffing is used
> when files are clicked, shell scripts can pass by.  I don't know if
> Nautilus executes shell scripts upon clicking, but this is not the
> point.

OK. I personally agree here. I want "pure" extensions solution (may be
as option for user to choose).
> If users have associated Windows executable files with WINE, for
> example, wine will run files whether they have extensions or not, as
> long as they are PE (portable executable) files.  Users can then receive
> something masquerading as a picture, but upon run, discover that their
> files are gone.  That the risk is 1-in-100000 does not matter.
If you associate only "exe" files, you have no risk.
> 
> The point is that encoding file type information in the file name is
> wrong.  To a big extent, files already "know" which file type are
> themselves, the problem is that the file manager is slow in determining
> file types because it has to sniff.
For me the problem is that sniffing is TOO slow.
> Extensions are just a hack, not a proper file type specification.  The
> current status quo is, therefore, a hack.  Unknowing users will always
> trample on that hack in the most unexpected way.  I myself have intended
> to rename files and kill the extension in the process.   That's exactly
> why Windows Explorer hides extensions by default.  And if Nautilus goes
> that route to avoid "user stupidity" (which is actually programmer
> stupidity) we'll end up with the same situation as with Windows
> Explorer.
If I have 500 .bmp and 500 .jpg files (eg. bmp - original, jpg -
transformed) then extension is the easiest way for me to open the file I
wanted. Or copy. Have you ever tried to sort files (without extensions)
by type using midnight commander? :) And why I use mc instead of
nautilus? Because it is fast, really fast. I don't want to waste 40
seconds for waiting on directory listing if I can get it in 1 second.
> Besides, it's about time I should be able to have OpenOffice files on my
> folders that don't have an extension, yet they open properly when I
> double-click them.  Get the point?
> 
> > Please please please... tell us !
> -- 
> 	Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)
> 	GPG key ID: 0xC1033CAD at keyserver.net