CompuServe Messages

John, CanOpener if a file browser/data retriever/simple data librarian that runs on the Macintosh (all known Macs as of this writing). CanOpener uses a two-tiered approach to getting useful text, graphics, or sounds out of a file. The first level is a modular filter approach that is useful if the data is in an encrypted form. The filters are plug-in modules that are file type specific. The second tier are the generic text and picture extractors that are built in to CanOpener. If no filters exist for a specific file, these extractors go to work. The text extractor has the ability to enter any file and retrieve and concatenate any bits of what it call "useful" text, and then to apply a cleanup algorithm to the text so that it comes out reasonably free of garbage. The picture extractor scans the file for blocks of data that "look" like quickdraw PICT data. It has to look at the data very carefully, to avoid passing quickdraw a non-picture. In answer to your second question, unfortunately, I had no help. I wish I had had some code to at least peek at! I work alot with various types of files that store PICT data all over the place. I use CanOpener to extract as well as validate the pictures in these files. It also has the ability to save this data to disk and to copy it to the clipboard. CanOpener's main end user use at this point seems to be extracting ascii text from corrupted WP and DTP files and general browsing. Ed <who probably told you more than you wanted to know> Ludwig, Abbott Systems Read action !re Enter reply. (/EXIT when done) 1: No, that was exactly the depth I wanted to hear. Thanks for the e 2: xplanation. CanOpener is a commercial preooduct? 3: /post Message # 41394 posted