Assorted Mac OS 8.5 issues: Type 23 errors, RIP problems; folder names that start with a hyphen; ISO CDs

Folder names that start with a hyphen and menu listings: an explanation of the problem I have received several rather technical explanations as to exactly why folder names that begin with a hyphen show up as grayed out in Navigation Services popup menus (as cited here last week). For example, Stuart Smith (Senior Software Engineer for Adaptec Software) reports that it is actually due to a bug (which has been around for a while) in certain system calls of the Mac OS (AppendMenu, InsertMenuItem and SetMenuItemText). While programmers can work around the bug, there is not anything an end user can do about it, other than not to start folder names with hyphens.

Update:various programmers offered their further insights on this matter. Kevin Parichan wrote: "It is not a bug in the OS. It is a bug in Navigation Services. The hyphen character is one of a few meta characters that can effect the display of menu items. If a program is appending menu items using text from an uncontrolled source (folder or files names, user entry, etc.), it needs to take care when appending the item, since the text may contain one or more of those meta characters."

Stephen Gilardi suggests: "I believe the bug is in the System MDEF ('MDEF' 0) rather than in the system calls you cited. In a nutshell, the problem is that the system MDEF currently 'draws any item beginning with a hyphen as a separator line.' This should be changed so that it 'draws any item consisting only of a single hyphen as a separator line.'"

Mac OS 8.5 and ATM Type 23 errors: a work-around? Michael McHugh discovered that unchecking the "Translate Documents Automatically" option in Mac OS 8.5's File Exchange control panel eliminated the ATM-related Type 23 errors he was having. [On the other hand, I currently have this option checked and have never had Type 23 errors.]

Yet another RIP problem Adding to last week's report, Peter Lundh writes: "Using Mac OS 8.5, printing one copy of one page from any program to a Xerox 5750 DocuColor with a PPC Splash 6.0 RIP causes the copier to continuously print the same page until the paper runs out. I emailed Splash tech support and they told me they where working on a new version of their RIP to fix this problem and that meanwhile they recommended to download to the version of the LaserWriter driver that came with Mac OS 8.1."

Update: Eric Galipeault writes: "The copier doesn't keep printing until it runs out a paper. If you stop the job and check 'Number of prints,' it says 666 copies. The fix for this, which was provided by Xerox is simple. Delete everything that has to do with LaserWriter 8.6, including extensions (LaserWriter 8.6, Printing Lib) and preferences (Printing Prefs Folder). You can leave the desktop printing stuff. Re-install Adobe PS 8.5.1 from the Splash v6.0 CD. Everything worked after that."

Mounting a ISO formatted CD Peter Lundh (again) writes: "A CD which was burnt on Wintel machine in ISO9600 format would not mount under Mac OS 8.5. We tried Toast CD-extension, Virtual PC and a plethora of other CD utilities, but to no avail. When we tried to load it on a Mac with Mac OS 8.1 mounted without any problems!"

Update: Bob Schulze comments: "In my experience, CDR drives are subject to similar problems as floppies. Discs you've burnt on one machine may be marginal or unreadable on another, although it's not common. I would suggest the reader check the disk on another drive, another machine, and with other driver software. Make sure they've got Apple's ISO extension in, too. I regularly use Apple's CD driver 5.3.1 from System 7.6.1, and have no trouble with it, even on my G3-266 running 8.5."