Hi,
I am working on a project which requires me to understand the
internals of a Desktop Database on a CD. I have a few questions in this
regard. Any leads which can be provided would be of great help.
How does the Mac recognise the presence of a Desktop Database?
What are the required files, flags and structures that tell the Mac that
there is a Desktop Database on the HFS Volume CD it is reading. And what
are the routines used to write into these files, flags and structures.
Is there documentation on the structure and layout of the Desktop
Database(Both Desktop DB and DF files). Are there any other files which
are required by the Finder to read from the Desktop Database. Does the
Volume header have any information regarding the presence, size and
contents of a DTDB?
What happens when the user copies documents from the CD onto the hard
disk?
In case it is an application, the Finder updates the DTDB with the
information available from the resources. And we are able to see the
corresponding icon displayed properly. What happens incase of
user-defined files (not files which have custom icons) whose information
we store in the DTDB of the CD. When the file is viewed on the CD the
Finder displays the icon from the DTDB of the CD, but what happens when
the user copies it onto the hard disk? Is the information on the DTDB of
the CD for that file(not application) transferred to the hard disk of
the Mac.
