Re: Need for a creator code?
Re: Need for a creator code?
- Subject: Re: Need for a creator code?
- From: Dave Sopchak <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:00:59 -0700
Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart.
I agree with Rainer, UTIs can be deduced from file types, extensions
and file creators, but I would sure like it if one could set a UTI for
a document and have this take care of things, not the other way around.
Also, it certainly seems that UTIs do not do anything to function as
creator codes. Maybe we need a Universal Creator Identifier as well ;)
I love Cocoa, but I absolutely hate file extensions. Sure, they're
nice for compatibility with those "other" operating systems, but I get
tired of
.jpg
.xcodeproj
.iMovieProject
.extensionskeepgettinglongerandlonger
I tried looking around both Carbon (where UTIs seemed to be embraced
first for files) and Cocoa, and cannot find a reasonable way to set a
file's UTI and forgetaboutit, so that it's recognized by the system as
belonging to a specific application, without putting in an extension
or type/creator code. UTIs are clearly an improvement over 32 bit type
codes, but what do I have to do? Would the UTI be associated with the
file's metadata? I think maybe, but in this case I would expect a
specific way for the system to look for this and cannot find
documentation to this end. It seems silly to have UTIs and have them
serve in what seems to me a superfluous manner.
Any advice would be welcome.
I would love (LOVE!) Apple to allow me a way to use UTIs as an
effective way to make file extensions optional, like in the good old
days.
Thanks for any and all. Apologies for the rant.
Dave
On Apr 1, 2008, at 4:44 PM, Rainer Brockerhoff wrote:
At 15:21 -0700 01/04/08, email@hidden wrote:
From: Andrew Farmer <email@hidden>
References: <email@hidden>
In-Reply-To: <email@hidden>
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:26:58 -0700
Message-ID: <email@hidden>
On 01 Apr 08, at 12:59, Marc Respass wrote:
I haven't registered for a creator code since System 7.5. Apple
has information and registration page (http://developer.apple.com/datatype/index.html
) about it but no indication if it's actually still required. Can
anyone tell me if it is still required or maybe point me at the
right information?
Type and creator codes have been deprecated since Tiger, which
introduced UTIs. (Maybe even longer; I'm not sure.) Either way, you
can safely forget they ever existed.
Type and Creator codes are alive and well in 10.5.x, and I haven't
seen any mention that they're deprecated.
They're still used by LaunchServices to bind documents to
applications. UTIs haven't substituted them, mostly because there's
no field in HFS+ that directly defines a UTI for a specific file;
instead the UTI is deduced from type, creator and extension (perhaps
also from file contents in some cases).
What actually happens is that file type is checked first, then file
extension, then file creator. LaunchServices matches them, in that
order, to registered applications. The same metadata are also used
to produce UTIs for that file, which are also used for matching.
It's still useful to register a creator code for your application if
you have documents/files that have no extensions (in that case, also
use a type), or that have some otherwise common extension, but still
need to show your app's document icon. All-lowercase code are
reserved.
There used to be some problems with using codes that contained
MacRoman characters with the high bit set - the codes use MacRoman
but the PkgInfo files (which are mostly obsolete these days) used
UTF8. I suppose that should work now, although I haven't checked.
Registering a code is much faster now - you get a response within
minutes, instead of the week it used to take in the System 7 days.
--
Rainer Brockerhoff <email@hidden>
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
"In the affairs of others even fools are wise
In their own business even sages err."
Weblog: http://www.brockerhoff.net/bb/viewtopic.php
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