Before Pages '09, Pages files were "packages" instead of files. There were some good reasons for that, but also a lot of inconveniences.
MacOS X is full of "packages" which in fact are directories.
Almost all MacOS X applications, including iTunes, Adobe Photoshop and NeoOffice are all packages. This makes it easy for developers to add and remove components and to see what files are included and what can be changed and needs to be improved. It also makes it easy to include a lot of information, which otherwise might have been spread over many files.
The main applications of MS Office 2004 are not based on packages. MS Office contains thousands of files. iWork '08 contains only 3 visible files: Keynote, Numbers and Pages.
So much for applications. But why use packages for documents?
The same reason. It is simpler. One can easily open the package of a Pages file and see what it contains if needed. If a picture does not display correctly, one can open the package and verify that the image file is there and that it works.
The drawback is that the files are difficult to attach to mails using webmail. But it takes just a right click to zip the file, and then it becomes both small and easy to attach.
MacOS X is full of "packages" which in fact are directories.
Almost all MacOS X applications, including iTunes, Adobe Photoshop and NeoOffice are all packages. This makes it easy for developers to add and remove components and to see what files are included and what can be changed and needs to be improved. It also makes it easy to include a lot of information, which otherwise might have been spread over many files.
The main applications of MS Office 2004 are not based on packages. MS Office contains thousands of files. iWork '08 contains only 3 visible files: Keynote, Numbers and Pages.
So much for applications. But why use packages for documents?
The same reason. It is simpler. One can easily open the package of a Pages file and see what it contains if needed. If a picture does not display correctly, one can open the package and verify that the image file is there and that it works.
The drawback is that the files are difficult to attach to mails using webmail. But it takes just a right click to zip the file, and then it becomes both small and easy to attach.
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