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Filter
... making Workspace and filter services live together in harmony.
Motivation
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The Workspace does a poor job of recognizing filter services. That is, even after you install a filter to convert one file type to another, say GIF->TIFF, the workspace doesn't register any applications as capable of opening GIF files. Hence, you must manually command-drag a file to the desired application in order to open it.
Alternatively, there might be an application that opens GIF files, but you prefer to use your filter service instead. As a simple example, the McFilter services perform on the fly gamma correction (highly desirable when importing images created on graphics challenged hardware), whereas the default GIF viewer does not. Filter provides a way to configure things so that GIF files automatically open using the application of your choice.
Using Filter
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Filter works by registering itself for document types that have filter services, and then looking in the defaults database to find out which application to actually use.
For example, Filter comes configured to accept files with the extension .gif. Once it is installed, I can set the application to use for opening GIF files by executing the following in a Terminal window:
dwrite Filter gif Preview
Double-clicking a GIF now opens it in Preview, using whichever filter service translates GIF->TIFF. If I decide I'ld rather use IconBuilder, I just type,
dwrite Filter gif IconBuilder
If I already have a GIF viewer installed, I need to make sure that I use the Workspace inspector to configure Filter as the default application to use when opening GIF files. Once that's done, I can try things like
dwrite Filter gif ImageViewer
This command will open GIF files in ImageViewer without using any filter service, since ImageViewer is already capable of reading them.
Adding New Types
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As shipped, Filter registers itself for GIF and JPEG file types using all the standard file suffixes. You can easily add new types to Filter by setting an appropriate icon and document extension in the ProjectBuilder attributes window.
Send any questions or correspondence to,
Scott Roy
Department of Computer Science
Stanford, CA 94305
hsr@cs.stanford.edu
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.