How to badge file and folder using Cocoa - objective-c

Question

I want to badge a file and folder with some color (image). How can this be achieved?
I tried with icon service, and it works for files, but it is not working with folders.
I saw this behavior working Dropbox (10.4, 10.5 and 10.6)- how can this be done?
The blog post Cocoa Tutorial: Custom Folder Icons was very close one for me, but it was not working as expected.
Is there another solution other than icon service?

Answer 1

The following function is the solution I found for the problem
BOOL AddBadgeToItem(NSString* path,NSData* tag)
{
FSCatalogInfo info;
FSRef par;
FSRef ref;
Boolean dir = false;
if (tag&&(FSPathMakeRef([path fileSystemRepresentation],&par,&dir)==noErr))
{
HFSUniStr255 fork = {0,{0}};
sint16 refnum = kResFileNotOpened;
FSGetResourceForkName(&fork);
if (dir)
{
NSString *name = #"Icon\r";
memset(&info,0,sizeof(info));
((FileInfo*)(&info.finderInfo))->finderFlags = kIsInvisible;
OSErr error = FSCreateResourceFile(&par,[name lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding:NSUTF16LittleEndianStringEncoding],(UniChar*)[name cStringUsingEncoding:NSUTF16LittleEndianStringEncoding],kFSCatInfoFinderXInfo,&info,fork.length, fork.unicode,&ref,NULL);
if( error == dupFNErr )
{
// file already exists; prepare to try to open it
const char *iconFileSystemPath = [[path stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"\000I\000c\000o\000n\000\r"] fileSystemRepresentation];
OSStatus status = FSPathMakeRef((const UInt8 *)iconFileSystemPath, &ref, NULL);
if (status != noErr)
{
fprintf(stderr, "error: FSPathMakeRef() returned %d for file \"%s\"\n", (int)status, iconFileSystemPath);
}
}else if ( error != noErr)
{
return NO;
}
}
else
{
BlockMoveData(&par,&ref,sizeof(FSRef));
if (FSCreateResourceFork(&ref,fork.length,fork.unicode,0)!=noErr)
{
//test
if (FSOpenResourceFile(&ref,fork.length,fork.unicode,fsRdWrPerm,&refnum)!=noErr) {
return NO;
}
if (refnum!=kResFileNotOpened) {
UpdateResFile(refnum);
CloseResFile(refnum);
if (FSGetCatalogInfo(&par,kFSCatInfoFinderXInfo,&info,NULL,NULL,NULL)==noErr) {
((ExtendedFileInfo*)(&info.extFinderInfo))->extendedFinderFlags = kExtendedFlagsAreInvalid;
FSSetCatalogInfo(&par,kFSCatInfoFinderXInfo,&info);
}
}
//Test end
return NO;
}
}
OSErr errorr = FSOpenResourceFile(&ref,fork.length,fork.unicode,fsRdWrPerm,&refnum);
if (errorr!=noErr) {
return NO;
}
if (refnum!=kResFileNotOpened) {
CustomBadgeResource* cbr;
int len = [tag length];
Handle h = NewHandle(len);
if (h) {
BlockMoveData([tag bytes],*h,len);
AddResource(h,kIconFamilyType,128,"\p");
WriteResource(h);
ReleaseResource(h);
}
h = NewHandle(sizeof(CustomBadgeResource));
if (h) {
cbr = (CustomBadgeResource*)*h;
memset(cbr,0,sizeof(CustomBadgeResource));
cbr->version = kCustomBadgeResourceVersion;
cbr->customBadgeResourceID = 128;
AddResource(h,kCustomBadgeResourceType,kCustomBadgeResourceID,"\p");
WriteResource(h);
ReleaseResource(h);
}
UpdateResFile(refnum);
CloseResFile(refnum);
if (FSGetCatalogInfo(&par,kFSCatInfoFinderXInfo,&info,NULL,NULL,NULL)==noErr) {
((ExtendedFileInfo*)(&info.extFinderInfo))->extendedFinderFlags = kExtendedFlagHasCustomBadge;
FSSetCatalogInfo(&par,kFSCatInfoFinderXInfo,&info);
}
}
}
return NO;
}

Answer 2

You can do this using the -setIcon:forFile:options: method on NSWorkspace, which lets you just specify an NSImage to apply to the file/folder at the path you give it.

Answer 3

The intended approach is to create a Finder Sync app extension.