[X4U] Can one convert OS 9 comments to OS X comments?

[Kuestner, Bjoern]

>> What is needed is an adherence to international standards for metadata.

> Perhaps XML?

Apple's software does not have a general problem with metadata. In fact,
looking at Spotlight they are doing pretty well to see the general
importance of metadata.

As for international standards and XML ... metadata should be differentiated
by content-specific and general. Content-specific are e. g. MP3-tags for
audio and IPTC/XMP for pictures. General are e.g. file creation and
modification date. XML is too broad a term to provide a specific answer.

Apple is doing okay in the metadata arena: HFS+ supports a fair deal plus
multiple forks if required. Currently and for historical reasons, only two
forks (data and resource) are used. But these are better supported than e.
g. the Windows equivalent ADS which (the last I heard) don't even show as
part of the file size plus have some security issues.

We're really only talking about Finder, eh, Spotlight comments that could be
so valuable and are much too fragile. That's no way for Apple to deal with
user data. And comments can hold significant data to the user.

Bjorn

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