Re: Reply to Answer to Mounted Network Drives
Re: Reply to Answer to Mounted Network Drives
- Subject: Re: Reply to Answer to Mounted Network Drives
- From: Ron Hunsinger <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:27:31 -0800
At 4:40 PM -0500 2/11/10, Chris Devers wrote:
The problem now becomes mapping out all the ways that icon previews
can be referenced in Finder's plist file, as it turns out that it can
show up in about a dozen places, and -- bafflingly -- it seems like
big chunks of the file wink in & out of existence when you use the
Finder normally, switching view modes etc.
The problem is that you're trying to edit an application's plist
behind its back while it's running. That isn't reliable, and in fact
usually doesn't work at all.
Typically an application reads all its settings from its plist when
it launches, and holds them in memory until it quits, at which time
the file gets rewritten if ANY in-memory settings are 'dirty'.
Settings that the program changes may or may not get written back to
the file at unpredictable times while the program is running, but you
can only count on changes being written when the program quits
normally.
Changes you make to the plist while the program is running WILL get
overwritten when the program quits if it has ANY pending changes in
its in-memory version of the settings.
The only reliable way to make changes to the preference file take
hold is to either make sure the program is not running when you make
the change (preferred), or immediately force-quit it after modifying
the file (brutal, because it prevents the program from cleaning up
nicely, as well as discarding any in-memory changes). Some
applications (Dock, for example) cannot be quit cleanly, so you have
to force-quit them (as with: killall Dock), but if possible shut a
program down in an orderly fashion before editing its plist.
In the case of Finder, surround your edits with:
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'
and
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to activate'
Finder will write back all of its settings to com.apple.Finder before
it quits, and then re-read them from that file when it re-launches.
There will be a visual effect. All of Finder's windows will disappear
when it quits, and then come back when it re-launches. Fortunately,
they'll come back exactly as they were, since the list of open
windows, complete with the size, position, and view of each, is among
the information that gets saved in the plist.
-Ron Hunsinger
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