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Bulk convert DMGs to 'Internet enabled' format
Authored by: carsten on Mar 21, '03 06:56:11PM

I find that "Internet Enabled" disk images are very annoying!

Now that they are here, whenever I download a disk image, I run a script right away to convert it back to a regular disk image before I open it. (See A script to shrink and compress disk images easily, which has the side-effect of stripping the so-called "Internet Enabled" feature from disk images).

This auto-uncompressing behaviour makes it impossible to archive or backup the image, or copy it to many other machines in it's nice (compressed or not) single-file format.

In my opinion this auto-uncompressing behaviour is a complete step in the wrong direction as far as the user-experience goes. Apple would have done better to rewite the dmg driver alogether, to make accessing dmg files just like opening a folders--no mounting of a "drive" container, just open and display the contents as if it were a read-only folder already.

Carsten Klapp

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Bulk convert DMGs to 'Internet enabled' format
Authored by: vonleigh on Mar 21, '03 08:34:13PM

From the developer site "After copying the disk image's contents, Disk Copy unmounts the image, clears the internet-enabled flag in the .dmg file, and moves the .dmg file into the Trash."

So just drag it out of the trash and store. It's a prefectly normal .dmg file.



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Bulk convert DMGs to 'Internet enabled' format
Authored by: mickelsn on Mar 24, '03 06:13:37PM

I agree that handling of DMG files could be handled much better at
the OS level, as others have suggested...

But what I absolutely HATE about the "Internet-enabled" images is
the control that you give up. When I "mount" a disk image by opening
it, the LAST thing I expect is a software installation that modifies my
HD contents somehow (Apps folder, System folder, whatever). I
WANT CONTROL!!

And frankly, it's a security risk. Can you imagine what's going through
a Mac OS X virus writer's mind now?? I'd be salivating over auto-
installed disk images...

If nothing else, Apple should make a user-accessible preference at the
system level to IGNORE the Internet-enabled disk image. And it
should be set to IGNORE by default, with plenty of information about
potential security risks, etc.

Neil



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Bulk convert DMGs to 'Internet enabled' format
Authored by: mech_filter on Mar 22, '03 08:16:05AM

<shrug> It's just a matter of user preference, largely based on whether
you are a network admin or not.

Me, I find it utterly annoying the way .dmg files behave. Like you I do
(mostly in theory only in my case) appreciate the neatness of keeping a
software distribute as a single easily portable file. But I don't need to
port mine around, and the ridiculous amounts of time wasted manually
creating folders to put .dmg-housed stuff in that you want to actually
use, then hunting down the disk image on your desktop (why on earth is
there no Finder menu option "Unmount..." that pops up a dialog you can
pick stuff to unmount?!), THEN go find the .dmg file and trash that, etc.,
it really all just drives me nuts.

I do strenuously agree with your closing sentence. If disk images, like
StuffIt files if you have Aladdin's "True Finder Integration", simply
behaved like folders, both sides would be happy. The one simple fix
Apple could implement that would go a long way is making .dmg's
behave just like .img's or any other mounted volume - if I drag it to a
folder on my hard drive, it should copy its contents to a folder with the
same name as the dragged disk [image]. Why on earth they thought
anyone anywhere would ever find it useful for this action to instead
create an alias to the mounted image just entirely escapes me. Better
yet, they could do that and make it so that option-clicking (or whatever)
on an image does the same thing my script does, and just gets rid of the
image file w/o it ever being mounted on the desktop, that way we
wouldn't have to go track them down and unmount them.

Maybe in 10.2.5. I can dream, can't I?



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Bulk convert DMGs to 'Internet enabled' format
Authored by: vonleigh on Mar 24, '03 01:12:20AM

"why on earth is there no Finder menu option "Unmount...""

Just control click within the window of the opened disk image, then select eject.


v



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Bulk convert DMGs to 'Internet enabled' format
Authored by: jervidalo on Mar 24, '03 04:15:26PM

Or press command+E



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