© Copyright Robert Vasvari, 1998.
MacOS issues
If you are connecting to MacOS, you have to be aware of the following isues/limitations:
You can only use the FTP protocol to connect to MacOS, since it does not have the UNIX utilities.
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 MacOSX Server 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 unto 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 us mail (rbrowser@ddrummer.com), 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.
RBrowser ® is a product of Different Drummer Software.