Plug-in Tutorial
- introduction
- talking to AEP
- processing
- making it better
- another removal
- add an extension
- some tips
Making it better
If you use just the application name in a plug-in, every time that changes, you might have to change the plug-in. With just a little more work, you can prevent that.Every Macintosh application has a creator type. Basically, this is a four character code, that tells the finder which documents and icons belong to which application. More to the point, an appication's creator code never changes, except perhaps when a new version comes out. So if you use this code to specify the application, your plug-in will become more robust and can also be used by people who have the same application, but renamed it.
To help you get the creator code, there is a little Applescript drag-and-drop application in the Template folder called Get creator code. If you drop an application on that, it will place the creator code on the clipboard. Use it now with the Nutcase Gzip application.
Let's return to the new plug-in and look at the next two lines
The first line just saves the application name into a temporary variable, don't concern yourself with it. You need to focus on the second line. If you followed the instructions, the creator code of Nutcase Gzip should be on the clipboard, so select PUT APPLICATION CREATOR TYPE HERE and just paste. (Just one more reminder of the importance of taking care of the quotes.) Did it change to NuGz? If not, try running the Get creator code application again and repeat the above steps. Otherwise, you are done with this plug-in. Save it, and try.
You now have a fully functional plug-in to extract gnu zipped archives, (as long as the file names don't exceed 28 characters). Removing file extension can be used for more things than just extracting. I'll show you one in the fourth part of this tutorial.