On Fri, 30 May 2003, Chip Griffin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Is this the only other way to do a JPG comment aside from re-saving
>with GraphicConverter?

No, it was the second suggestion I made in this thread (the first was
the pre-OSX software, Edit JFIF Comment).  Will it not run on OSX, or
is it merely relatively slow?  Slower than what, possibly other than
my script?

Someone else suggested using Perl--or was it unix?--both of which'd
be very fast, I imagine.  I further imagine (although untested) one
could probably also do it with any of a variety of other programming
tools such as Java, Frontier (or whatever name by which it now
happens to go), RealBasic... C?  Name your poison.  Have you looked
at other scriptable mac image software?  Untested, but JPEGView's
image class lists the comments property as r/o, so that probably
rules it out.  Or what about using a scriptable text editor?
Probably pretty clunky, but a JPEG file's just a data fork, after
all. <shrug>

Incidentally, when one manually uses GraphicConverter (3.6.2) to edit
an image's comment ("Special" menu), the image itself is not
opened/resaved. <shrug>  Have you tried asking its creator to make
the app. script in a similar way?  Have you considered "playing" GC's
UI to do this, rather than scripting it properly?  I've suggested a
fair number of different possibilities, now, but I don't have OSX
here to test any of them, so you'll have to do that for yourself.

>Seems very complex. I am a little more leery of
>such a direct manipulation.

Which begs the question why apparently indirect manipulation is less
leer-inducing in some folk--is it because of the power of
dissociation, i.e. one doesn't believe/fear one is meddling with a
file's data fork because one doesn't directly observe it being
meddled with, despite the fact that that is the known outcome
(assuming meddlesome success)?

I'm making no promises that I've properly understood the JPEG file
structure--there's probably an official definition available
somewhere on the web.  Use whichever instrument works for you.

Meddler on the roof
- who's leery of leerers, lear jets, and assorted other things, but
not often of trying things out; meddljng.

Selected from Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary":
FICKLENESS, n. -- The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.