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A teacher dragged some text into a shared folder.... trying to get URL "Webloc" files...
She got "text clippings".. which are pretty damn useless!
How does one convert text clippings to TEXT, fer fracks sake!?!
It's either impossible, or so deceptively simple that I'm missing it.
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What he said. Most annoying "feature" of OS X.
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Paul, drag the clipping into TextEdit or Word. Voila, real text.
If the teacher wanted to create a webloc file, she needs to load the URL and drag the favicon off and into (wherever).
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deckeda;
Tried that... I get a text clipping (basically an uneditable picture of text) in the TextEdit document....
I've already (re)showed her how to OPEN a URL and then drag the favicon to wherever...
Unfortunately, as is too often the case, since this didn't work the first time, she's lost all interest in ever trying it again... Grrrr....
But I want to be ready for the next teacher with the same problem!
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TextEdit opens a blank window with the title of the text clipping.
Text Wrangler opens a window with the actual text from the clipping.
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[quote Paul F.]deckeda;
... I get a text clipping (basically an uneditable picture of text) in the TextEdit document....
Then it doesn't sound as if it was text to begin with, or the server it went to is Windows, which took one look at it and fsck-ed it up.
[quote Paul F.]
Unfortunately, as is too often the case, since this didn't work the first time, she's lost all interest in ever trying it again... Grrrr....
Wonder what she does when her students display a similar attitude ... ?
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[quote DaviDC.]TextEdit opens a blank window with the title of the text clipping.
Text Wrangler opens a window with the actual text from the clipping.
Just tried it again with TextEdit/Leopard. It works like text clippings have always worked since before OS X ...
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I just opened a new TextEdit window & dragged a clipping to it, & it worked!
Dragging the text clipping to the TextEdit icon in the Dock opens a blank window with the title of the clipping, as does right clicking & selecting 'Open With.'
This is with OS 10.5.2 on an Intel Mac mini.
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click on the clipping to open it, do a "command A" (you won't see a ny highlighting but it will be selected,then do a copy and paste into whatever.
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Believe it or not, clipping files are actually resource-fork files under OS X.
If the files were copied to a Windows or Linux server volume, they probably lost their resource forks.
If the OS made an invisible resource-fork file on the remote volume, it's probably possible to convert it back to a Mac resource-fork... but it's also probably too much of a PITA.
That's the end of it. If that's what happened then 'might as well tell her that the text is gone.