Michel and Matt, Thanks for the feedback. I am of the same opinion as both of you, both about how the bit after the dot should be used and about Explorer's annoying hide-the-extension feature. However, in developing software, there is always the issue that the software might behave in a way that will confuse the user for reasons that are entirely procedural and not central to the function of the software or the chore it attempts to perform. I sometimes have trouble guaging which features of my programs will fail in that way since I am (1) intimately familiar with how my programs operate, and (2) a rather idiosyncratic computer user to begin with. Fortunately, I now have the resource of our mailing list to help me when I get confused about these things. Thanks for the help. B -- Bruce Ravel ----------------------------------- ravel@phys.washington.edu Code 6134, Building 3, Room 222 Naval Research Laboratory phone: (1) 202 767 5947 Washington DC 20375, USA fax: (1) 202 767 1697 NRL Synchrotron Radiation Consortium (NRL-SRC) Beamlines X11a, X11b, X23b, X24c, U4b National Synchrotron Light Source Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973 My homepage: http://feff.phys.washington.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://feff.phys.washington.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/