[Maf] Revisiting the Extension issue

[Bruce Rusk]

I've just discovered MAF and love it, and wanted to bring up the .MAF
extension issue which I know has been on this list before.

It may be that conflicting with another Windows file extension is not such a
big issue, but in this case I'd like to make a special plea for changing it.
.maf, at least on my Windows system (WinXp with Office XP) is NOT a
run-of-the-mill file extension. Rather, it is a "special" extension that
creates a shortcut to an Access form. This doesn't just mean that the
default application for .maf files is Access (which is as one would expect)
but also that as a shortcut the file has some weird behavior.

I don't know what all the implications are, but among other things, even
with "Display extensions" on, Windows explorer does NOT show the file
extension .maf: on my desktop I now see file1.doc (Word), file2.pdf
(Acrobat) and file3 (MAF file). This could be very confusing for some users
-- when I first download MAF, I thought I had misconfigured it and it wasn't
adding an extension to the filename.

Furthermore, while I could probably change the default program to open .maf
files to Mozilla, this would revert every time the Office
installation/repair program was run, requiring a little too much
on-the-ballness on my part just after another Office crash.

Thus I would strongly support a change to .maff.


Thanks,

Bruce Rusk