[toolbox] Extended Attributes

[<jer...@u-...>]

I don't know how many developers are there but at least  we can start a 
discussion.

Tiger now supports xattrs BSD feature, and it is -really- a major step 
forward.
To play with xattrs, you can download
<http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~rpointon/osx/xattr.html>
I don't know how far those xattrs are linked to their file when moving 
around the internet but things are promising.

Using xattrs, you can store any kind of meta data that are not strictly 
necessary but makes life so easy.
You can also store vital data such as character encoding.
I can see here another mean to store the TeX source(s) of a pdf file 
with the output, without forgetting the pdfsync file...

AFAIK, the actual context is:
- Adam made a draft cocoa bridge
- there is a pythonmac bridge too
- some links from google about EAs (Extended attributes) and ACLs 
(Access Control List) related to  the linux kernel
- we already discussed a bit on the mactex list concerning 
specifications, but we should edit some general usage specifications.
- I did not find anything about a concrete use of xattrs to store the 
character encoding,

Here is what could be done

1 - make a low level cocoa bridge over all the xattrs functions, using 
an NSFileManager category (Adam's already did quite all the job)
2 - Define the xattr convention to be used, namespace, contents, 
formats...
The most important is the character encoding when it can't be hard 
coded in the text.
Here is the material for an article on the mac tex toolbox web site
3 -  Make an attributes wrapper, that uses the above bridge on tiger 
and standard resources on previous systems (I am starting that as a 
cluster with two concrete subclasses: one for tiger and one for the 
others)

That's all for the moment: I have to make iTM2 work!