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since .mellel is so many characters the finder doesn't recognize it making all .mellel files invisible to spotlight and impossible to attach to emails, for example. switch to .mel so that the files will be more accessible, please.

According to the alphabetic list of file extensions at Wikipedia, the .mel is still available.

But according to the Alphabetic File Extension List at FILExt, the suffix/extension .mel is already taken and represents:

• Maya Embedded Language Script (Alias Systems, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited)

• Ericsson Phone Melody

Perhaps you could explain a bit more what you mean exactly. I have no problem with Spotlight finding documents that have .mellel as an extension, nor do I have a problem attaching those documents to an email.

File extensions that are only 3 characters are a relic of Microsoft's past, where the FAT filesystem required filenames be no longer that 8 characters with a 3 character extension. The modern OS X system and its default HFS+ filesystem allows for filenames to be 255 characters (including the extension), plus allows for an arbitrary number of attributes, as well storing arbitrary data in the resource fork of the file. Shouldn't our filenames (and hence our extensions) be as descriptive as possible, to help reduce confusion and enhance readability?

Consider mine a vote to keep the default extension as it stands, and a vote against changing it to something short.

(Also, there are ways other than filename extension used by the operating system to determine what type of file it is working with. OS X also supports the use of type and creator codes, as well as MIME-types.)

rpcameron wrote:I have no problem with Spotlight finding documents that have .mellel as an extension, nor do I have a problem attaching those documents to an email.

ditto that.

Also wish to point out that there would be no reason to email a .mellel file to anyone who isn't using OSX, so there is realiy no reason to shorten the extension.

Janet

macsailor wrote:According to the alphabetic list of file extensions at Wikipedia, the .mel is still available.

If I remember correctly, the shorter .mel extension was used by the previous document format. Which probably means that current versions of Mellel use the shorter extension to recognise the old documents.

T.

Yeah, I think the shorter one was .mell

aaronpr wrote:since .mellel is so many characters the finder doesn't recognize it making all .mellel files invisible to spotlight and impossible to attach to emails, for example. switch to .mel so that the files will be more accessible, please.

The new .mellel format is not a single file, it's a package/folder which would explain problems with web-based mail clients. Zipping the file into an archive should work. That's what Apple Mail does btw.

As to the Spotlight search, did you enter something like *.mellel by any chance?

Here's an article that may explain to you what is going on here, and how you can email such files. This arrangement is by no means limited to Mellel.
http://paininthetech.com/2007/10/21/mac-os-x-bundles/

Also, OS X, like all Unixes, can handle arbitrary extension lengths. The OS uses all kinds of things like ".webplugin" and ".mdimporter." Just out of curiosity, which OS was giving you hassles with the extensions?