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Mac to Novell filename issues may block copying
Authored by: dayhox on Mar 24, '06 09:11:36AM

Since our move to OS X and the addition of Linux and BSD servers to our environment, we have placed a restriction on allowed characters to be used in naming files: ? [ ] / \ = + # < > ; : " , | * are not allowed. Not everyone breaks something currently, but this is just future proofing for us.

Just because it's an available key, doesn't mean you should use it in the name of your document.



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Mac to Novell filename issues may block copying
Authored by: redclawx on Mar 24, '06 12:12:41PM

<quote>
? [ ] / \ = + # < > ; : " , | * are not allowed.
</quote>

Here at our College campus, it comes down to the end users just not knowing that they shouldn't use those characters. When they get an upgraded computer, we copy their document up to a Windows server. Sometimes there be files with date in their names, (6/3/2006). We have to locate each one and change the file names. Even though we tell the faculty not to use the characters afterwards they still do.

On a side note, Microsoft Office v.X and 2004 breaks this rule. They have three AppleScript items in the "Entourage Script Menu Items" folder; "Create Event from Message\cE", "Create Note from Message\cN", and "Create Task from Message\cT". You can find these files in your Microsoft User Data folder in Documents. I know MS just wanted an easy way to add keyboard shortcuts for these but you would think that MS would use the Customize Keyboard menu option that's available in any of their other Office Applications. That's just piss poor programing.



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Mac to Novell filename issues may block copying
Authored by: beepotato on Mar 25, '06 01:56:43AM

> That's just piss poor programing.

On the other hand, Microsoft wrote Entourage for the Mac, not for Windows.
I mean, it's very frustrating for programmers and users of Mac OS when they get asked to limit what they can do with this OS just because of Windows' own limitations. After all, if you use a Mac, it is to do more than you could do with Windows! ;-)

BTW, can't you copy your users' documents to a HFS+ disk image on the Windows server? This way, you wouldn't have any problem with filename compatibility.



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Mac to Novell filename issues may block copying
Authored by: redclawx on Mar 27, '06 01:26:09PM

Yes, mounting an HFS+ disk image from the serving on your Mac and then copying the files to the mounted disk would work. Up until the point when you need to get to the files from a Windows computer. And turning on Windows File Sharing on the local Mac doesn't help either.

I just ran a test with 2 folders and 2 files. The folders and files appeared just fine on the mac but from Windows the ones with illegal characters had garbled file names:
Folders: (Mac -> PC)
Hello -> Hello
Hello/ -> H0MUWZ~3
Files: (Mac -> PC)
Hello.rtf -> Hello.rtf
Hello.rtf/ -> H0MUWZ~3.RTF



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Mac to Novell filename issues may block copying
Authored by: osxpounder on Mar 24, '06 04:04:27PM

Just a small rant here: while most of us here can be proud that we "know better" than to use problematic characters, the best solution is for the computer OS and apps to just let us use any character.

I used to think of Mac OS as more tolerant in that regard, and I hold out hope that the old-fashioned idea that "some characters can't be used in file names" will eventually go away.

---
--
osxpounder



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Mac to Novell filename issues may block copying
Authored by: ADent on Mar 24, '06 08:46:32PM

Are there any Applescripts or programs that will automagically go and find these 'bad' characters and replace them?



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