Another problem that we suffered from in Tiger was that the command line tools to manipulate disk images would not work consistently. We have automated builds that run at regular intervals - and sometimes hdiutil et al leave disk image icons in Finder for images that aren't actually mounted, or mounted disk images that can't be reached from Finder, or other forms of garbage. Our builds are always running the same script, but the results seem to vary by the time of day, phases of the moon and the atmospheric conditions in Mongolia.
I've noticed that some software developers (e.g. Panic) are starting to move away from disk images: Zip archives just seem easier to build, easier to use, and more consistent all around. We're considering doing the same.
Peace, Tobias
-- Tobias Peciva Team Leader / Software Architect
On 8/12/2007, at 12:45 PM, Stéphane Sudre wrote: Disk Images are really nice to use, no discussion about this, they are great to distribute applications or documents but sometimes creating, updating or maintaining a disk image looks like "playing a game" in Saw V. You're suffering and you know you will fail anyway.
Here's why:
* Easy ways to create disk images appeared, disappeared and then re-appeared:
In some OS version, you can just drag and drop a file or folder on Disk Copy (R.I.P) or Disk Utility and it will create a disk image. With some OS releases, you could not.
* Disk Utility is not able to detect problems in Disk Images:
This particular case is somehow slowly getting upsetting.
- You can have a disk image mount fine on Mac OS X 10.3. But it won't mount fine (warning displayed or the very user centric error message about the lack of a mountable something) on 10.4. You have to fix it in 10.4 in most cases.
- You can have a disk image mount fine on Mac OS X 10.4. But not on 10.5. You have to fix it in 10.5 in most cases.
- My favorite: You can have a disk image mount fine on 10.4. It can mount fine on 10.5 if you download it using Safari and Safari is configured to automatically mount the disk image. But if you later double-click the disk image to mount it on 10.5, then it won't mount fine.
* Disk Image and the Finder are probably not made by the same company:
It's a nightmare in many situations to make a nice presentation inside a disk image:
- You need to take into consideration that the Status bar may not be visible when you make the background picture of a disk image.
- You need to take into consideration that on some OS versions, scrollbars may not be displayed.
- You need to take into account that when you change the name of the mounted disk image on some OS versions, you may have to rebuild the link to the background picture of the disk image. BTW, I think the nobel prize should not be attributed to Al Gore this year, but to the engineer who made it possible that in Leopard, when you use /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V, the change is taken into account on the fly, without having to unmount and mount again the disk image. This would make everyone forget that with a release of the DevTools on 10.3, SetFile -a V or v was not working.
- You need to not break down when you select a background picture for a disk image, because on some OS versions, after selecting the background picture in the View inspector, you have to select again the Background radio button
- You need to remember that one some OS versions, if you change the background image, it will not be seen on previous OS versions and that you need to fix this in the previous OS versions.
- With most major OS releases, the grid space between Icons is being modified. It sure helps.
- In some occasions, you have the strange feeling of being in a Tom & Jerry cartoon when you try to align icons. Moving an icon to a position will make the other icons go away. The first time, it's funny, later on, it becomes very very annoying. Last time I saw this one it was on Mac OS X 10.4.10. I haven't dared working on disk images in Leopard yet, so maybe at last, this does not happen anymore.
- And the current issue that makes me write this post: the Finder in Leopard has absolutely no respect for your work. You can spend a lot of time to precisely align icons, select the icon size, the font size. The Finder just does not care. It will display your sub-folders in List View mode if that's the last view mode used in a Finder window. It will use the correct view mode for the root window of a disk image, but the sub-folder presentations are considered peanuts by the Finder.
One of these days, while working on a disk image, I will end up clicking willingly on a link in one of these stupid spams I'm receiving to buy Xanax, Vicodin, whatever. |