[HN Gopher] The Origins of DS_store (2006)
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The Origins of DS_store (2006)
Author : edavis
Score : 28 points
Date : 2024-07-03 21:55 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.arno.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.arno.org)
| ggm wrote:
| Aside from this file, the "fork" concept of Mac file systems
| caused some wtf moments. Fork not being fork() but being the two-
| pronged idea in that file system, both a resource and a data
| component existed as pair. One metadata and one the file
| contents. In Unix, the metadata was in the directory block inode,
| and wasn't bound to the file in a formalism uniquely, it had to
| be represented by structure in tar, or cpio or zip distinctly.
| Implementing Mac compatible file support in Unix meant treating
| the resource fork first class and the obvious way you do it is
| for each file have .file beside it.
|
| You couldn't map all the properties of the resource fork into an
| inode block of the time in UFS. It has stuff like the icon. More
| modern fs may have larger directory block structure and can
| handle the data better.
| senderista wrote:
| You have the same "resource fork" concept in Unix xattrs and
| NTFS streams.
| ggm wrote:
| No disagree, Both came later IIRC. Melbourne unis work on
| appletalk and Apple file system support was in the late 80s
| and I believe POSIX xattr spec work was mid nineties, NTFS
| was '93 or so. The fork model in apple file store was
| eighties work.
| nullindividual wrote:
| GP wasn't arguing about timelines.
|
| NTFS ADS were created to accommodate Mac OS resource forks
| on network volumes when using AFP.
| pkaye wrote:
| NTFS has alternate data streams. I think its hardly ever used.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#Alternate_data_stream_(AD...
| asvitkine wrote:
| Used by malware mostly, I think.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Resource fork used to contain all the stuff you could edit with
| ResEdit (good old times!) right? Icons, various gui resources,
| could be text and translation assets too. For example Escape
| Velocity plugins used custom resource types and a ResEdit
| plugin made them easy to edit there.
| metadat wrote:
| It's worth mentioning how to turn off the creation of .DS_Store
| files for network volumes - otherwise the directory modified
| timestamps are updated as you browse using the Finder, which is
| Just Plain Terrible.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/lvju40/comment/gpc8i...
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Personally I make sure mac users do this before they get write
| access to a network share. It's just a matter of common curtesy
| IMHO.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Not to mention that it's an obnoxious and incompetent design.
| Look at the fact that Mac OS litters every other computer it
| visits with turds, for its own (and in fact only one user's)
| benefit. It's doubly stupid because the next browsing Mac that
| comes along trounces the previous one's turd.
|
| If Apple wanted to store view settings for remote volumes (or
| even local volumes), the competent design would have been to
| store them locally (and per user) in a central location on the
| machine doing the browsing.
|
| I remember the promised re-write of Finder and thought it never
| happened. Nothing seems to have improved for the user. I could
| post a list of decades-old defects that persist today.
|
| The one thing I can think of that has finally been fixed (and
| this was long after the "rewrite") was that you can now finally
| sort the file list properly: with folders at the top.
|
| Now I wish someone would explain something that might actually
| be worse than DS-turds: the presence of a "Contents"
| subdirectory in every goddamned Apple package. I mean... who
| thought you needed to create a directory called "Contents" to
| hold the contents of the parent directory? It's mind-boggling.
| threeseed wrote:
| > the competent design would have been to store them locally
| (and per user) in a central location on the machine doing the
| browsing
|
| Not sure but it could be the case that when you mount a
| network drive there isn't a stable identifier that can be
| used to track it.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| If you run Samba you can also configure Samba to just ignore
| such creations.
| l33tman wrote:
| Maybe unrelated to this, but I noticed fairly recently that my
| backups from my macbook now backup seemingly randomly modified
| pdf and txt files all over the disk. My guess is that whenever I
| search for something, it decides to touch a couple of hundred
| files (but not ALL pdf/txt files for some reason).
| thought_alarm wrote:
| > _Those files should only be created if the user actually makes
| adjustments to the view settings or set a manual location for
| icons in a folder. That's unfortunately not what happens and
| visiting a folder pretty much guarantees that a .DS_Store file
| will get created_
|
| This is my number one frustration with the Finder.
|
| You can customize the look and size of individual folder windows
| in many interesting ways, al a the Classic Mac OS Finder, which
| is a really great feature. But if you blow through that same
| folder in a browser window then most of those customization are
| lost, overwritten with the settings of that browser window, even
| if you never change anything.
|
| What's the point of allowing all of these great customizations
| when they're so easily clobbered?
|
| I have a global hot key to bring up the Applications folder. I'd
| love to customize the look of that window, but it's pointless.
| Whenever I hit that hot key I have no idea what I'm going to get.
| It's always getting reset.
|
| By the way, the reason it does this is because the Finder has no
| way to set a default browser window configuration. So instead, it
| just leaves behind the current browser settings in each folder it
| visits. Super frustrating.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| DS Store seems so unfortunate. Yes it serves a purpose. Yes you
| can work around it in various ways. But the reality is that it's
| basically proliferated file litter to 99% of people who come
| across it. It's uncharacteristically un-Apple in terms of UX
| polish.
|
| Growing up with both System 7.5 / OSX, and windows machines, the
| Macs never seemed inclined to make me see extraneous files,
| filetypes, and other "how the computer works" implementation
| details. It's just so odd to my mental model of it all to see
| this file end up everywhere.
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(page generated 2024-07-03 23:00 UTC)