Stacks inside OSX Package

Kay C Lan lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com
Sun Jul 13 23:06:35 EDT 2008


On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 4:50 AM, Stephen Barncard <
stephenREVOLUTION2 at barncard.com> wrote:

> Just a reminder from the house of cubes...
>
> Saving data inside a package works great, as long as one's backup scheme
> doesn't include reading the DATE from the application package. Changing data
> inside a folder in MacOSX does not change the date of the folder, and
> neither does it change in an .app package


Whilst this is certainly true, I just did a quick test with Time Machine by
adding a small text file inside an App package, and whilst the  App Created
and Modified dates did not change, Time Machine did recognise that the
package contents had changed and backed up the extra file. What I don't know
is whether Time Machine backed up the entire App, or just the contents that
changed.

***I ASSUME*** Apple is smart enough to treat an App just like any other
folder and back up only the *FILES* that have changed, not entire folders.
***END ASSUMPTION***

I raise this because of what I've read on the net about what is termed 'Time
Machine incompatible apps'. The classic example given is Eudora which I
understand saves all it's e-mails in one DB file. If you have 200MB of
e-mails and you get one 4KB e-mail every hour, Time Machine backups the
entire 200MB DB every hour, thereby rapidly eating into your backup HD
space. Apple's Mail on the other hand has separate files for each 'Mail
Folder' you set up, so assuming you go to the trouble of setting up multiple
'Mail Folders', a 4KB e-mail may only require a 5MB file to be backed up.

I know you can save all sorts of things in Custom Properties; images,
sounds, even other stacks, but I see that this could, if the end product is
large enough, create a Time Machine unfriendly stack.

Tereza's solution, although not as KISS as Sivakatirswami original post,
seems to offer both cross platform benefits and should keep (Time Machine)
backup usage to a minimum.

Anyone else have thoughts on making Rev Time Machine friendly?



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