Stuffit - WTF?

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aladds's picture
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Stuffit - WTF?

I found a Stuffit archive extractor which isn't made by Aladdin/Allume called "The Unarchiver" (google it) and I would *really* like to replace Stuffit Expander with it, but the damn thing won't let me! If I select an archive, get info, select "The Unarchiver" as the associated program for sit file opening, it will then open with it if I double click, but if I click "change all" it just reverts back to Stuffit. I've gone into Expander and turned off everything I can find which implies opening archives, but it doesn't work.

And here's the weirdest thing, I made a zip of Stuffit expander.app using the finder "make archive" command, and deleted the .app, sit archives started opening with The Unarchiver! Great, i thought... but upon restarting sit files seem to be associated with MS word! :S hqx files open with The Unarchiver still, but i mean, wtf?

I hate the way Aladdin/Allume try to force Stuffit onto you, The Unarchiver is quicker to load, quicker to extract and manages to make something of the really old sit files I've recovered and are partially damaged, or that Stuffit refuses to handle at least! (It's only sitx files The Unarchiver won't handle, but nobody much ever used those anyway)

So, how on earth do I associate sit files with The Unarchiver?

cheers,

Adam

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get info

VersionTracker

freeware is nice

To associate any files for any specific app, get info on one of the documents.
(select the document in the Finder, then under File menu, Get Info... or... i)
In the info window, look near the bottom for
"Open with:"
Pull down the menu (probably reads Stuffit currently), choose other, find Unarchiver, choose it, then, this is key, hit the "Change All" button in the Get Info window.

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Personally, I'd prefer that t

Personally, I'd prefer that the F word not be used on this site, even in an abbreviation, and especially not in a title. There's still some of us in this world that find it offensive, even though I'm not uninclined to use it myself in particular extreme personal circumstances, but never in public, and never just offhand. All kinds of people and all ages have access to this site. It would be nice to maintain a certain respectful ennvironment.

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WT(NOT F)

Ignoring the fact that saying "F word" is just as loaded as WTF and arguably the actual word...

WTF can cleanly be used as a subsititute.

What the frig?

What the fark?

What the feck? (See Almost Famous for usage)

We toast figs?

Weird turd figurines?

Washed Toast Farts?

It's safe.

(notice how I neatly sidestep the issue of adults pretending swears don't exist accomplishes nothing-nor do I mention that never ONCE in the course of human events has a swear ever emotionally or physically damaged anybody)

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a bit

I thought about that before posting, but because the poster used mostly complete sentences, readable punctuation, didn't spell things like they were drunk, and, like it or not, these words have become a part of a frustrated person's vernacular... I cut them some slack. But... sure, a bit offensive. Word to the wise, aladds... what you spread will always come back to you in spades, so do your best to make it sunshine and not, uh, skat.

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Well, for those philosophers

Well, for those philosophers among us, maybe I should make a suggestion to Tom and the moderators to write into the AUP a prohibition on abbreviations which have an UNDENIABLE PREPONDERANCE (!) to refer to offensive or inappropriate language.

In truth, I've actually not been overly offended seeing it in posts. I really don't like it in titles, though. The titles are the doorway into this site and are first impressions, after all.

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The following...

... words cannot be said in this forum (reads the master list from George Carlin) Smile .....

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good point

just like most watches (re: "What does your watch say?"), this forum is deaf and mute.

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Re: get info

VersionTracker

freeware is nice

To associate any files for any specific app, get info on one of the documents.
(select the document in the Finder, then under File menu, Get Info... or... i)
In the info window, look near the bottom for
"Open with:"
Pull down the menu (probably reads Stuffit currently), choose other, find Unarchiver, choose it, then, this is key, hit the "Change All" button in the Get Info window.

As said, I tried this, for some strange reason it changes it to Word as soon as I press change all, but before i do it does change the individual file correctly :S

I'll repair permissions and see if it still does it Smile

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At the risk of further derail

At the risk of further derailing this thread...

I do know that in the past - on the old board IIRC - Tom did take issue with one user going on a WTF-fest. That user was younger, and he was using it because it was a new and risque...relative to that user's own experience, of course.

As most of you know, swearing on Applefritter is verboten. Abbreviations like WTF, while there's no set rule, seem to have been treated in the context in which they're used (as in discussing its usage in this post). I've seen it used as an occasional exclamation of bemused bewilderment, and have no problem with that. But if you're using it or other abbreviations and such just to pretend you're cool, then it's probably going to be frowned upon. Ultimately, it's Tom's board, Tom's decision. There's plenty of online dictionaries for the adjective-deficient.

Good judgement and thinking before you click submit should make it clear where that line in the sand is between acceptable and unacceptable , and 99% of those here are quite capable of self-moderating.

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I really don't see why people

I really don't see why people care, it's just an acronym, interpret it as you will. I just don't see why we have to loose a thread over it. Heck, I'd change the topic if I could! I just thought people here were mature enough to deal with it.

Life is full of things like this, what's the point of protecting yourself against them?

Now, lets get back on topic and worry why The Unarchiver won't set as the default app for my archives, please!

But fine, for those fo you who did find it offensive, I apologise.

Edit: And for the sake of argument, I meant "What the Fudge" so there Blum 3

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as Administrator?

Is your account a normal user? or administrator? I don't think this should matter... sorry I skimmed through and missed that. Repairing permissions is a good bet. Off hand, I can't think of anything else you could try, other than removing Office... or maybe deleting the Word plists from
/Users/youraccount/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist
&
/Users/youraccount/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist

Come to think of it... Office is always stepping out of bounds... every Office update it mucks up permissions.

Jon
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Re: I really don't see why people

I just thought people here were mature enough to deal with it.

Life is full of things like this, what's the point of protecting yourself against them?

I'll just chime in to say that it's protecting the precocious minds of those who aren't mature enough that we are doing. AF is supposed to be an all ages forum, and thus many of the rules, the shushing of 133t-speak, and why you won't find pr0n links, etc.

Smile

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Re: I really don't see why people

Life is full of things like this, what's the point of protecting yourself against them?

I know it's not your intent, but following that logic I shouldn't look both ways when I cross the street. Wink

But back on topic, I have the same file association problem at work with PDFs. I can open a list of PDFs on an external server and half of them will open in Preview, and Acrobat for the other half.

I checked out Apple's developer notes here and default association is set by a whole host of factors. Briefly, from the link above:

For individual document files (whether specified by a file-system reference or a URL with scheme file), the criteria are as follows:

1. If the user has specified an explicit binding for the document (or for the entire document type to which it belongs), the preferred application is the one the user has specified.
2. If the document has a filename extension (or if one has been specified as a parameter to LSGetApplicationForInfo), find all applications in the Launch Services database that claim to accept documents with that extension.
3. If the document carries a four-character file type (or if one has been specified as a parameter), find all applications that claim to accept files of that type.
4. If more than one application has been found as a result of steps 2–3, apply the following criteria in the order shown:

  • 1. If the document carries a four-character creator signature (or if one has been specified as a parameter), give preference to any application that claims to accept documents with that signature (typically the application to which the signature belongs).
  • 2. Give preference to native OS X applications over those that run in the Classic emulation environment.
  • 3. Give preference to applications residing on the boot volume over those residing on other file-system volumes.
  • 4. Give preference to applications residing on a local volume over those residing on a remote volume.
  • 5. If two or more versions of the same application have been found, give preference to the one with the latest version number.

If two or more candidate applications remain after all of the foregoing criteria have been applied, Launch Services chooses one of the remaining applications in an unspecified manner.

If you're sure Stuffit is purged, you may need to rebuild your LaunchServices database

And there's RCDefaultApp, which will re-associate files, perhaps better than the finder does.

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Re: I really don't see why people

Life is full of things like this, what's the point of protecting yourself against them?

I know it's not your intent, but following that logic I shouldn't look both ways when I cross the street. Wink

That's terrible logic. LANGUAGE DOES NOT HURT.

Knowledge of and exposure to words that were decided were offensive by some random people can not cause damage to your body or mind.

The "F word" means the same as "screw" "fornicate" or "do it"
it also means the same as "darn" "heck" "crap"

This puritanical obsession with controlling language is only found in english. Other languages don't have this fixation on words being evil or powerful. There are social conventions that prevent dirty words but don't need the FCC or the Christian coalitions controlling our thoughts.

Control of language IS control of thoughts.

It's like this "He's not a janitor, he's a maintenance engineer" crap

Like that's going to give someone more job satisfaction, money or change the fact that he's got to clean up puke.
Or saying someone's special instead of retarded...will that change the fact that they're probably going to vote republican? (actually, most of my clients tended towards a liberal stance, but were often incited to vote for the bad guys by the staff working with them)

Words only have power if we let them.

Making a fuss out of swears empowers them and shows that you're controlled by fear.

It's rude to swear, and kids should know that swears are rude and socially unacceptable...but to say they could get hurt is idiotic and creates a society where swearing is MORE prevalent because people realize that they can't get hurt and nothing bad happens and so they do it alot. Kinda like DARE drug education...lots of my friends learned which drugs they wanted to try from the "Just say No" goons' examples.

BLAH.

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" ;) " implies tongue-in-chee

" Wink " implies tongue-in-cheek.

Back on topic, please.
Partly my own fault for derailing, and aladds I apologize.
Those wanting to discuss the other issue can start a thread in AF Architects - which I probably should have done in the first place. Live and learn.

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missed you

glad your back, eeun! segway away... just like the good old days...

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Well...

RCDefaultApp told me that it was only assigned in some ways, so I assigned stuffit files every way I could find. Now I'm rebuilding the launchservices database. I'll let you know how it goes!

Thankyou Biggrin

alk
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Ha! I started reading thi

Ha!

I started reading this thread thinking it was going to be a rant on how Stuffit isn't as good as it used to be, and the company that used to be known as Alladin has changed. I was mighty surprised to find that this wasn't the case (though it was implied by the OP's desire to dump Expander).

What the heck has happened to Alladin? First they get sued and change their names to "Allume Systems" or whatever, and now it looks like they've been bought by yet another company. I just recently went to download Expander 11 (go figure, Expander isn't installed with the OS anymore) only to find that I have to give them my email address to get the download location! And what's more, they openly acknowledge that they will be sending you spam! But, oh, it's okay because you can unsubscribe at any time.

No thanks. I opt out of of being forced to opt out.

What gives?! Is anyone else as dissapointed as I am?

Peace,
Drew

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Re: I really don't see why people

... I just thought people here were mature enough to deal with it. ...

And there are others who believe that 'maturity' lies in choosing not to use it in print in a public forum. It achieves nothing that the same number of characters arranged as 'why?' cannot achieve. Anything that you write in your diary, your private musings or your shopping lists is for you only to read. Almost all else that you write is, by definition, for others to read.

de

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Re: Ha I started ...

Without making any claim to having done exhaustive research, my impression is that Aladdin Systems was obliged by someone else's having prior claim to 'Aladdin' to use the longer business name. Perhaps the move to 'Allume' was to complete the distancing, regardless of the causes. But now it seems that Smith Micro has gobbled up another useful software producer, with the aim of blunderbussing the world with yet another needless series of upgrades of an increasingly superseded, less useful product.

RIP Aladdin Systems. Sic transit gloria mundi.

de

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Re: Ha!

I just recently went to download Expander 11 (go figure, Expander isn't installed with the OS anymore) only to find that I have to give them my email address to get the download location! And what's more, they openly acknowledge that they will be sending you spam!

Simply have a hotmail or yahoo email account that you use strictly for this type of thing. Spam? Who cares? I hardly ever go into that email account and don't care what's in it. So what if they're trying to find some kind of profit in it somehow? It's still free and it works. As long as it works and doesn't mess up other things, how do you complain about something that's free, unless it's some ploy to monopolize later on, but in the free market of software, when does that really happen?

alk
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It is the principle, not the

It is the principle, not the price. I just find it offensive to be compelled to give them my contact info. I didn't mind it when the survey was there and you could fill it out with false information, but I can't accept the idea that they actually need my email address.

The very notion of spam is offensive to me, and being required to submit my email address to the company so that they can send me marketing emails at a later time constitutes a breach of my privacy that I can't abide, even for a free product. This isn't merely a "registration" scheme as they could achieve the same effect by including an opt out checkbox on the form itself rather than requiring me to opt out by unsubscribing to their marketing list later. It's a trojan horse. They send me the registration email and hope I forget to unsubscribe. Later, they send ads directly to my inbox.

Besides, there are far more effective marketing means. They could make Expander "nagware," for instance. Or they could include adds in the Expander window for the Deluxe product. They could even use Google Ads!

Why should I waste my time creating and maintaining a throw-away email account for this purpose?! No thanks. I'll skip the product entirely. Besides, it's not that good a product, so I'm hardly missing anything by not downloading the newest and greatest version. And for the life of me, I can't see what has changed between version 7 and version 11 in terms of functionality. The only thing I need it for (to expand .sit and .sitx archives) is completely unchanged.

Peace,
Drew

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re: It is the principle

While I share Drew's disinclination with having to provide email addys to DL a free product, you can hardly fault the software developer for trying to eak a small bit of valid info from users. After all, the product is free to us, whatever its utility.

Where's the cost? As HC suggests, providing a throwaway addy is surely simple enough. And I won't believe DLing Expander is the only place one might want an otherwise unused addy, just having one around is just generally useful.

I think Drew's real issue may be basically having to lie just to get the SW unencumbered by giving someone a real address. I know I don't want to give out my addy to yet another entity, and I hate being forced to deceive to achieve that (by using an otherwise useless addy.) Why should I go against one of my basic precepts (to not lie?) I know having to lie makes me cranky. Acute

dan k

PS: FYI, in this particular case we can avoid the issue altogether, here's a link to stuffit's ftp site

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Sitting ducks?

While not being as vehement as Drew about it, because I have registered full versions of 2, 5 and 7 Deluxe that cover all my decompression/decryption needs, I agree with him that there are ways and ways of drawing the market's attention to a useful product. I also have not yet found any significant need of vv. 8-11. When I do, I have confidence that I shall have the wit to find (given that the company survives) the product that I need. In the meantime, I do not exist to be sold anything, especially when I am at home. That includes email, telephone and, if necessary, telepathic sales approaches from anyone.

de

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newsgroup consensus

I also have not yet found any significant need of vv. 8-11.

This has been the consensus on a.b.mac.applications for quite some time now. Expander v.7.0.3 (even NOT Universal) is all that's needed, beyond that, reports are that things start breaking.

FYI
v10.1.0b is the first appearance of a Universal

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Nagware, advertising popping

Nagware, advertising popping up in the program? Gross me out. Give me spam in an email account I don't use instead anyday! Even Quicktime often annoys me when I have to wait for its splash ad window to stop trying to download before I can click the window closed. I've got six or so email accounts right now for different purposes--a few for personal, one for banking, and a couple for this spam avoidance and other kinds of wary-of-the-unscrupulous purposes. Works for me. Thank you Allume or whoever for not making nagware or popup ads with your free software! A lot of the time you get free stuff for the price of giving personal information because that's a really cheap way for them to learn about and target their market. That's why you get it free. Something nefarious about that? Seems like a small price to pay for something very useful.

I just noticed that there's a google ad/link for "alladin" at the bottom of this page right now that's actually a link to all current eBay auctions with alladin in the title. Now there's marketing for you--as soon as some word comes out of your mouth, you've got an ad for a Disney figurine staring you in the face.

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phones home

They may not have nagware, but I'm certain they are data mining...
Little Snitch, sort of a reverse firewall, is highly recommended.
----
btw, you can turn off that off in Quicktime preferences, under General, click off "Show Content Guide automatically." A happy day it was that I figured that out, finally.

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