[CS 3 For Mac] Why I get the folder XXX.IndesignPlugin ?

> My plugin seems not to be loaded by the Indesign After I've copied the plugin file(It is a
> folder with .IndesignPluin extension in my system) into the Indesign CS3/plug-ins/
> directory. What's wrong with it??

there are a few possibilities I came across:

1. make sure your extension is ".InDesignPlugin".

2. make sure you have compiled the right target. I have compiled the Debug target (set by default when open the SDK projects) but I copied the one from "build/mac/release/SDK/..."

3. make sure it works with the SDK projects. If they don't, then you have a bigger problem than your own project.

4. Open an existing plugin package that shipped with CS3 and compare with yours... may be your bundle is ill formed?

Bundles are indeed just folders or directories on the file system, nothing magical about them. You can see that from the Terminal. Finder, however, will treat them as single entities, so double-clicking on those items will trigger specific actions instead of letting you to navigate into them like regular folders.

My problem is that I can navigate them like a regular folder. It can be opened like a reaular folder and will not trigger a specific action.
My plugin seems not to be loaded by the Indesign After I've copied the plugin file(It is a folder with .IndesignPluin extension in my system) into the Indesign CS3/plug-ins/ directory. What's wrong with it??

Thanks
Castus

Dirk, pete, Thank you indeed for your replies.

To elaborate on Dirk's posting.

Bundles on Mac OS X is documented here:



Bundles are indeed just folders or directories on the file system, nothing magical about them. You can see that from the Terminal. Finder, however, will treat them as single entities, so double-clicking on those items will trigger specific actions instead of letting you to navigate into them like regular folders.

The icon is not unique to plugin dev... pretty much any Mac developers will run into this once in their careers.

To fix the icon problem, I usually do the following:

Do a Get Info in Finder on the offending plugin. [With the item selected, Cmd-I in Finder]

Select the icon on upper left [with the Get Info window first opened, just hit the Tab key]

Copy the existing folder icon [Cmd-C]

Paste the folder icon [Cmd-Y]

Remove the folder icon [Cmd-X]

At this point, Finder will try to look up the proper icon image from Launch Services and assuming you have InDesign installed and launched at least once, the plugin icon should show up by now.... until you build the next brand new plugin from the SDK. :-)

pete

InDesign plugins are bundles.
Bundles are folders that the OS usually recognizes as package so it treats them as non-folders. For newly built plugins, the OS is a bit lame to catch up. This is just a cosmetic issue.

A simple fix is to use the finder contextual menu to zip and unzip the folder. There might also be some appropriate command line spell that you could use as build phase, if you find it tell us.

There is also a "show package contents" finder contextual menu that allows you to inspect the bundle later on - it is still a folder.

If you're missing the ".IndesignPlugin" name extension, that's a bug in the project template. Open the project in a text editor and search for a variable "extension..." don't know exact name.

Dirk