Include File Extensions

Like two-button mice, file extensions (for example, .txt and .doc) have long been considered by some Macintosh users as symptoms of consorting with the Dark Side. Under previous Macintosh operating systems, file extensions were not required. In those days, files consisted of two forks, a data fork and a resource fork. The data fork held the true guts of the file, while the resource fork told the system which icon to use and how to open the file. Under UNIX-based OS X, the Macintosh does not yet require file extensions to determine which application should be used to open a file, and which icon should represent the file—that can be accomplished with the Get Info palette. But file extensions are still helpful for human ...

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