Macintosh Chooser: How It Displays Names


I am designing some AppleTalk-based services and need to know how the Chooser
"sorts" these items:

1) For a network "object" (like LaserWriter or AppleShare), the display of
network resources accessible to you.

2) For a specific AppleShare server, the display of Volumes accessible to a
user.

It appears that none of these lists is alphabetical (though life would be
simpler for network designers if they were). I'm hoping that by better
understanding how it DOES work, we can choose our assortment of network and
volume names more intelligently so the appearance to users is more consistent.

1) For System 6 and earlier, the Chooser does not sort the names at all;
they are displayed in the order that they are received by the NBP lookup
request. Under System 7, the list is alphabetical.

2) At the server, devices are displayed in Finder order: startup volume first,
followed by SCSI drives in descending order of SCSI address, followed by
devices connected via the drive port in the order returned by the getVolInfo
call. At the workstation, the devices are displayed in exactly the opposite
order, with the startup volume at the bottom of the list.


Published Date: Feb 18, 2012