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by zeveb 3852 days ago
Resource forks were pretty cool, actually: they were a simple database attached to every file, which could be used to store metadata or other information. It was pretty common for applications to store fonts, icons &c. all in their resource forks.

Back when I was a kid I used to use ResEdit to change application & file icons, fiddle with GUI controls, change menu structures and so on. Happy days!
4 comments
btown 3852 days ago
I remember back in the day I would hack on mods for a series of games called Escape Velocity. And these mods were entirely created using resource forks for everything from game logic to flavor text to images. ResEdit was the closest thing we had to an IDE. Compared to source control that would allow us to collaborate, or even SQlite databases that could be trivially backed up, it felt like we could lose our work at any time. But at the end of the day, that was part of the fun.

More info on how it worked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_(Escape_Velocity) (why this is a relevant article in Wikipedia, I have no idea.)

Note to anyone reading this, though: If you're designing a system from scratch, don't even think about using resource forks to store data. Just say no.

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azinman2 3852 days ago
Me too. ResEdit was magic to a 10 year old (myself).

The author clearly has no idea what he's talking about, except pointing out long known issues in transferring files with resource forks to other operating systems.

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__david__ 3852 days ago
Yes, this is what most of the other comments aren't emphasizing—resource forks had a standardized format and Apple even shipped a tool for visualizing/editing them. They were also extended so you could tag and embed any arbitrary data you wanted to. This was fantastic because it allowed me as a young programmer to poke around in real shipping products and see how they organized things. The same way you might poke around inside an .app wrapper or a .xib file nowadays. But 30 years ago!

From today's perspective, they are just there for backwards compatibility.

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wsc981 3852 days ago
I used to edit levels with ResEdit for the Mac Bomberman clone BOOM. Good times :)
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