Name Lengths

[Skinflint]

Does anyone else have to shorten names of files when putting them on a Mac volume?
When our clients supply files, some of the link images are too long and the name needs to be shortened. It is time consuming and would prefer not to do this.

Not sure why this is but is there a work around?

 

[otherthoughts]

Mac file system format perhaps?
HFS = 31 characters
HFS+ = 255 characters

Comparison of file systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mac OS X: About Long File Names

Old implementation of AFS running on Network server hosting the Mac Volume?

ExtremeZ-IP-White-Paper-Sharing-Mac-Files-on-Windows-Servers.pdf

Best Regards
OtherThoughts

 

[Joe]

Does anyone else have to shorten names of files when putting them on a Mac volume?
When our clients supply files, some of the link images are too long and the name needs to be shortened. It is time consuming and would prefer not to do this.

Not sure why this is but is there a work around?

Use SMB for networking your Macs to a Windows server (FREE) or spend big bucks for a something like Extreme ZIP.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

8-bit or unicode characters can be problematic in cross platform environments. Even characters like space can decide to be a "%20" meaning that you may have a name that is withing 31 characters suddenly be beyond that limit. Best is to follow www naming conventions for files, though this becomes harder as the thresh hold for qualifications as creators becomes lower.

 

[RickS]

If you are shortening names, you can use a little ap called Classic 31. It will speed the process up.

 

[Skinflint]

I need to find a way that we will no longer have to shorten names which breaks links to the documents. We preflight files after they are placed on the server but sometimes we need to shorten before moving to the server. Can be time consuming.

 

[Skinflint]

If you are shortening names, you can use a little ap called Classic 31. It will speed the process up.

Where can I locate Classic 31? Did a google, no luck.

 

[Joe]

I need to find a way that we will no longer have to shorten names which breaks links to the documents. We preflight files after they are placed on the server but sometimes we need to shorten before moving to the server. Can be time consuming.

Again...Use SMB for networking your Macs to a Windows server (FREE) or spend big bucks for a something like Extreme ZIP.

Shortening the name via any means will break the links.

 

[Shawn]

Depending on the version of the Mac OS you're running and the OS on the server or NAS box you may want to turn on named streams when accessing files through SMB. For us this enabled support for resource forks on various Windows workflow servers running Kodak Insite and Prinergy.

Apple has a good article on how to do this on a machine by machine or on a server level.
Mac OS X v10.5, v10.6: About named streams on SMB-mounted NAS, Mac OS X, and Windows servers; "-36" or "-50" alerts may appear

Shawn

 

[oxburger]

What Joe said. Use SMB.

 

[buckeye]

Joe and Ox,

What's the downside to using SMB. I tried it before and can't remember what or why it wasn't for me. I'm running a Rampage workflow if that matters. Was there something to do with already loaded fonts via afp and then trying to view them via SMB?

Erik

 

[Ultimate]

you can find this app (Classic 31) here:
Mac OS X Apps - The Source For Mac OS X Software

Hope this helps,

Ray Duval
Ultimate Technographics
www. imposition.com

 

[buckeye]

I just now saw why I shied away from SMB. The fonts that were copied via afp show up as zero KB when mounted via SMB but I think I'm going to start using SMB for all new incoming jobs and see how it goes.

 

[buckeye]

Skinflint,

I feel your pain. I had a job that had WELL over 100 long file names. It amazes me when someone feels like they need to write a novel when naming a file. FYI, here's a link from the Mac OSX Hints Forum that describes some of the pros and cons.

SMB versus AFP steel cage deathmatch [Archive] - The macosxhints Forums

Erik

 

[CHM]

I just now saw why I shied away from SMB. The fonts that were copied via afp show up as zero KB when mounted via SMB but I think I'm going to start using SMB for all new incoming jobs and see how it goes.

This is true, using SMB is a no go when your working on pre OS 10.6 systems. We are doing some tests now on OS 10.6 and working with SMB dont seem to be a problem annymore, also for fonts.

 

[oxburger]

CHM and Buckeye,

When we load our fonts, we stuff them before sending them over the network. Since we load our client fonts on whatever local machine we happen to be working on, we just unstuff on the desktop and load into FontExplorer and don't have any issues.

 

[Joe]

I just now saw why I shied away from SMB. The fonts that were copied via afp show up as zero KB when mounted via SMB but I think I'm going to start using SMB for all new incoming jobs and see how it goes.

Yes, the solution for those is to re-copy those fonts from a Mac to the Windows server via SMB. If they are already there by copying as AFP they will not work with SMB.

 

[jsnkiefer]

We would just work from the desktop on certain jobs with long file names, not a server, before getting ExtremeZ-IP (which works fine).

 

[yespress]

We switched over to SMB and it completely solved the name length problem. Sorry we didn't do it sooner, not having to rename all those files would have saved a lot of time. Best of all, it didn't cost anything.

 

[Sick HP]

This is true, using SMB is a no go when your working on pre OS 10.6 systems. We are doing some tests now on OS 10.6 and working with SMB dont seem to be a problem annymore, also for fonts.

New guy here, Hello to the forum members!

I'm running 10.4 and we mount via SMB and have no problems.

-Dan