Topic       : TOS - das Betriebssystem
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View Ref-File15.13.2.2  Extended names                                          TOS

Experience with XAcc has shown that it would often be useful to have 
more information about an application than specified with ACC_ID 
messages. For example it is sometimes useful to check for a special 
feature that is not unique to a single program, but to several similar 
ones. This was the motivation for the introduction of "extended 
names".

An "extended name" is a character string of the format

'name'\0XDSC\0'string'\0'string'\0...'string'\0\0

i.e. a "standard" name followed by the string "XDSC" (for "eXtended 
DeSCription"), followed by a list of strings containing additional 
information. The end of the list is marked by an additional zero byte.

Each information string indicates by its first byte what kind of 
information it contains. Currently the following types are defined:

 '1'    - application type (human-readable)

        The text following this byte (an ASCII-1, 0x31) should roughly 
        specify the type of application, e.g. "word processor" or 
        "spreadsheet". The purpose is for applications to present this 
        information to the user to let him/her decide where data 
        should go. This is not the place for advertising hype; a word 
        processor should call itself "word processor" and not 
        "document editing and design system".

        It should be clear that the text should be understandable for 
        end users, especially it should be in the language used for 
        the user interface.

 '2'    - application type (machine-readable)

        Currently defined are:
        "WP" - word processor
        "DP" - DTP
        "ED" - text editor
        "DB" - database
        "SS" - spreadsheet
        "RG" - raster graphics application
        "VG" - vector graphics application
        "GG" - general graphics application
        "MU" - music application
        "CD" - CAD
        "DC" - data communication
        "DT" - desktop
        "PE" - programming environment

 'X'    - extended features This string is used to indicate special 
        communication capabilities of an application. It can be used 
        to give more specific information than the message groups 
        understood. Since this information is meant to be used by 
        other applications rather than end users, short abbreviations 
        are sufficient.

 'N'    - generic name Often several related, but not completely 
        identical, applications have different names. Marketing 
        requirements may even dictate changes of the "official" brand 
        names, making them unsuitable for a "technical" 
        identification. In such cases a "generic" name for all these 
        programs can be specified, which is mainly used by other 
        programs wishing to use special messages.

The "normal" name should be the "official" name of the program, just 
as it is used on the package, in the manual, and in similar places. It 
should be presentable to the user to let him/her decide where to send 
data.

Example: The address database "That's Address" identifies itself with 
the extended name (in C syntax)

"That's Address\0XDSC\01database\02DB\0XMM\0XSU\0",

indicating that it is a database with features "MM" and "SU". The 
first one indicates a special mail merge mode, the second one the 
possibility of retrieving data by sending the key via ACC_TEXT. 
(Further information on this program can be obtained from its manual.)