I have a publishing system that “prints” document component lists (e.g., article and graphic file names, etc.) to folders that each contain a preference file indicating page size, color model, margins, rotation, etc. The application doing the printing scans the folders for new component lists, to which it applies the specs in the preference file in building Postscript code that goes to the actual imagesetters. OK so far.
My problem is that the preference files are keyed to their respective folders, not by the usual path specs (e.g., “Macintosh HD:Documents:Spool Folders:Tabloid Portrait Color”), but by some low level Mac OS 9 file system folder ID number, about which I can find little info. This has become relevant because I must move the Spool Folder, containing about 20 individual setup folders with their unique prefs, to another drive and folder location. The preference editor is “write only” . . . after entering the specs for a particular preference setting, you can no longer view what they were, only delete the old one and create a new one from scratch. The last time this was done, fussing with all the parameters took a couple days.
So, anyone know anything about Mac OS 9’s use of some kind of ID number for folders, and how to use Applescript (or anything else, for that matter) to find out what that number is? Knowing the number, I can inspect the prefs file for that number and edit it to match the number at the new location.