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Diggory Laycock · Jan 1, 2002, 12:53 PM

Hi,

I'm writing an app that deals with filetypes:

the problem comes when I want to get an icon that represents a filetype and creatorcode couplet.

Cocoa doesn't *seem* to have this ability, the closest I have found is the NSWorkspace Class.

NSWorkspace has a iconForFiletype: method that I have used successfully to get an icon for an extension-type. The same method can take a filetype, but that's not really what I need as I need to specify the creator code as well. (a document with a filetype 'HTML' will have a different icon depending on the creatorcode)

So I assume that I'll have to use carbon to do this. The File Manager seemed to have the answer in the PBDTGetIconSync function, but when I tried to use this I found that you must pass the size of icon you require, by way of a constant. The largest of these is defined as:

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>kLarge8BitIconSize

Large 8-bit color icon. Corresponding resource type: 'icl8'.[/code]

That's not really what I want, I would like a mac os X style massive icon.

So obviously this isn't the way to go about it either!

What is the correct way? Does anyone know?

Thanks

Rickster · Jan 1, 2002, 11:44 PM

See LaunchServices.h, which contains the same APIs the Finder is said to use for discovering information about file/app binding and icons.

It's not Carbon per se, but some folk might still hate it because it's not Objective-C. Gasp.

Diggory Laycock · Jan 2, 2002, 08:23 AM

Thanks Rick,

I have already used LaunchServices' LSGetApplicationForInfo to get the name of the app that handles an extension (and therefore that app's icon.)

However LS seems to require a reference (either FSRef or CFURL) to an instance of a filetype - whereas I am working with the concept of a filetype (I need to get the icon, even if no file of this kind exists on the filesystem.)

My current thinking is to create a temporary file with the attributes I require, get the info I require, then delete the file.

This seems rather ugly to me, but I can't find any other way of getting info for for a filetype/creatorcode couplet.

does anyone have any better ideas?

Digs.

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: Diggory Laycock ]