export problem: file names

exporting files with names like “0.a” and “0.b” does not work out well: I end up having only one file “0.html” (or “0.rtf”) exported, even with the drag-and-drop-method. I use the dot a lot in file names to make the wiki link more readable (e.g. 14.a24.b) - how can I export these files without losing some of them?
Unfortunately, this problem only occured to me after I filled my database with many files which contain a dot somewhere. When I save an rtf file in a different program (like, text edit) with a name like this, there is no problem at all - even 0.a works well. What can I do about it?

Thank you,
Mark

Hi, Mark. As you discovered, it can get tricky when you use characters that normally have a conventional meaning in file names, such as “.”, which is normally used to separate the “name” portion of the filename from the extension that designates file type.

Note also that DT will let you use ‘forbidden’ characters in names of documents in your database, such as “:”. That character is sometimes used in the names of articles or books in a database, and many of my file names come from selecting the title of a book and using ‘Set Title As’.

Furthermore, DT will let you use the same name for documents within the same group (which can be useful), although the Finder will not let you use identical file names for files within the same folder.

So, in moving files from a database to the Finder, DT uses some conventions that may change the names of some files in order to make certain that they really are exported, and are not lost because the Finder would find their names illegal, either because they have the same name, or because they contain an illegal character.

I did some experiments with naming a test series of documents in my database using your naming conventions. Rest assured, when you Export or drag files named like that, each and every one now exists in the Finder. Each and every file is created in the Finder, but many of the names are changed.

There are a few cases of ‘hybrid’ file formats that use two extensions. One that I use is the hybrid file format used by Papyrus 12 for its hybrid PDF file type, with the extension “.pap.pdf”. DT’s current treatment of that file type doesn’t cause any problems; so although I’ll report your experience to Christian, I’m not sure how much tweaking of file naming conventions should be done, as I definitely want recognition of my hybrid PDF files to be as “.pdf” by applications that can open PDF files, and as “.pap.pdf” by Papyrus.

If you had used another character than “.”, which has a special connotation in file names, the confusion could be avoided.

For example, if instead of “14.a24.b” you had used “14-a24-b” or “14 a24 b” (probably the easiest to type) or “14_a24_b” that confusion raised by attempting to parse the filename for the file type extension would have been avoided, and export to the Finder would result in identical file names of your documents in the Finder.

Bottom line: you won’t lose any files that have the naming convention you have been using, when they are exported to the Finder. But you won’t recognize most of the file names in the Finder. In the future, try using spaces instead of dots between the segments of your file names (or another character that doesn’t have a special meaning in filenames and is legal in the Finder). Then the names won’t be changed during export to the Finder.

thank you for the immediate answer, Bill, I will replace the dot in file names with the dotted line from now on, to make the documents export- and futureproof (worst dream: an apple ceo heart issue, management change, new computer hardware/ -system based on fast-thinking stem cells or something). To prevent me from using new dot-file-names in internal links, I will have to change the existing file names as well. Which is bad. (At least I found out before the db grew too huge).

What puzzles me, though, is that rtf and html export have different re-naming conventions. For example, when I export the files “0.a” and “0.b” as .rtf, they become “0.rtf” and “0-1.rtf”. I really wish this might be different, but ok, another minority user problem (translation: please change :cry:).
BUT: When I export the two files as html, I end up with only one file, “0.html”, the other one has gone to database nirvana.

“unusual” file names in DTPro + wiki-links + export = trouble. Sad, but can it be helped? At least with html export?

Mark

The final relese of DT Pro 1.3. will fix this and therefore export…

0.a.rtf
0.b.rtf

…and the website export will export…

0.a.html
0.b.html

:smiley: thank you for listening, such a quick solution for the export issue is amazing! :smiley:
you saved me a great deal of work today… (actually, this saved the day…)
Great!

Mark