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The Origins of DS_store (2006)

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Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#41

Post by worstspotgain »

kzrdude wrote: post #8
ggm wrote: post #2

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…

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.

A lot of Classic Mac apps just used the resource fork to store all their data. It was basically used as a Berkeley DB, except the keys were limited to a 32-bit OSType plus a 16-bit integer, and performance was horrible. But it got the job done when the files were small, had low on-disk overhead, and was ridiculously easy to deploy.

Once you pushed an app beyond the level of usage the developer had performed in their initial tests, it would crawl to a near-halt, thrashing the disk like crazy on any save. Apple's algorithm would shift huge chunks of the file multiple times per set of updates, when usually it would be better to just rewrite the entire file once. IIRC, part of the problem was an implicit commitment to never strictly requiring more than a few KBs of available disk space.

In a sense, the resource fork was just too easy and accessible. In the long run, Mac users ended up suffering from it more than they benefited. When Apple finally got rid of it, the rejoice was pretty much universal. There was none of the nostalgia that usually accompanies disappearing Apple techs, especially the ones that get removed outright instead of upgraded (though one could argue that's what plists, XML and bundles did.)

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#42

Post by [deleted] »

yellow_postit wrote: post #39

Finder remains one of those apps I still can’t make effective use of. Windows File Explorer for all its warts and changes still “just makes sense” to my brain vs how finder lays things out and expects you to browse. I’ve long since moved to command line or dual pane explorers but it’s something that makes me pause every time I do find myself in Finder for some reason.

[deleted]

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#43

Post by dylan604 »

ggm wrote: post #2

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…

It was all of the forked data that made dual format CDs/DVDs "interesting". In the beginning it was a trick. Eventually, the Mac burning software made it a breeze. Making a Mac bootable DVD was also interesting.

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#44

Post by climb_stealth »

yellow_postit wrote: post #39

Finder remains one of those apps I still can’t make effective use of. Windows File Explorer for all its warts and changes still “just makes sense” to my brain vs how finder lays things out and expects you to browse. I’ve long since moved to command line or dual pane explorers but it’s something that makes me pause every time I do find myself in Finder for some reason.

I wholly agree with you on this one. Windows has its fair share of issues, but Windows Explorer feels like peak file browsing to me.

For MacOS I can recommend Forklift [0]. I've been using it for years and it is a bit closer to the Windows Explorer way of doing things. Does what it is meant to do. Affordable. No nags. Gets out of the way. Not perfect, but soooo much better than the horrific experience that is Finder.

[0] https://binarynights.com/

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#45

Post by netsharc »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
ggm wrote: post #2

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…

It was all of the forked data that made dual format CDs/DVDs "interesting". In the beginning it was a trick. Eventually, the Mac burning software made it a breeze. Making a Mac bootable DVD was also interesting.

I recall seeing CD-ROMs that had both Mac and Windows software on it, and depending on which OS it was mounted on, it would show the Windows EXE or the Mac app... I wonder how that's done. I'm guessing there was a clever trick so files on both filesystems share the same data (e.g. if the program/game had a movie, it would only store the bytes of the movie once but its addressable as a file on each filesystem), but that sounds like a nightmare.

I can probably look it up and figure it out myself, ah, the joys of learning about obsolete tech!

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#46

Post by dylan604 »

netsharc wrote: post #45
dylan604 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was all of the forked data that made dual format CDs/DVDs "interesting". In the beginning it was a trick. Eventually, the Mac burning software made it a breeze. Making a Mac bootable DVD was also interesting.

I recall seeing CD-ROMs that had both Mac and Windows software on it, and depending on which OS it was mounted on, it would show the Windows EXE or the Mac app... I wonder how that's done. I'm guessing there was a clever trick so files on both filesystems share the same data (e.g. if the program/game had a movie, it would only store the bytes of the movie once but its addressable as a file on each filesystem), but th…

There were also the audio CDs that had data on them. Audio CD players would just play the audio, but a CD-ROM could access both. Some had apps that were games that would play the audio portion for the game.

If you want to know about the different types of CDs, you'll want to know about the various colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#47

Post by [deleted] »

thought_alarm wrote: post #9

> 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 Cl…

[deleted]

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#49

Post by be_erik »

jwells89 wrote: post #28
kzrdude wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I credit ResEdit hacking partially for steering my path towards becoming a programmer. I had my Classic Mac OS installs throughly customized, as well as the other various programs and games that stored their assets in resource forks. It was a lot of fun and something I’ve missed in modern computing. Not even desktop Linux is really fills that void. ResEdit and the way it exposed everything complete with built-in edit…

ResEdit and using it to modify Escape Velocity is 100% the reason I’m still in this industry.

Re: The Origins of DS_store (2006)

#50

Post by slmjkdbtl »

I remember there used to ways to turn off the creation of .DS_Store but they removed it, I can't figure out for life why they would make such a change. I had to write a program [0] to watch the entire file system and delete .DS_Store as soon as they're created.

[0] https://github.com/slmjkdbtl/dskill

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