Hide the "cloud icons" with FileProvider

Question

jomentino OP

Created Feb ’22

Replies 2

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Hi,

I'm working on something that is not a cloud-sync utility. I'd like to hide/remove the cloud icons that show up default with FileProvider. The mount should mimic the behaviour of any attached usb-volume, so all features like "auto-mirror" / cache is something I want to disable. Instead the user should simply see the files and be able to drag & drop them to or from a folder on their Mac to the mounted FileStream volume.

Please let me know if there are ways to do this to simplify the UX for the user.

Thanks joemet

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Answer 1

Engineer OP

Apple

Feb ’22

FileProvider is designed to sync a directory between the user’s local filesystem and a remote system.

It is not designed to behave as a mount, where the I/O is blocked on the remote system. FileProvider assumes the remote system may be offline for arbitrary periods of time, and the user can continue reading/writing local files while they are offline. All upload operations happen asynchronously from the actual I/O on the user’s local filesystem.

To answer your specific question about the cloud icons - these cannot be hidden by your extension. The file must be downloaded on the local filesystem for the icon to disappear.

I recommend watching the WWDC 2021 session about FileProvider on macOS: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc21/10182

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Answer 2

jomentino OP

Feb ’22

Thanks clenart,

We're looking at using FileProvider to show contents of a usb-device that can't be presented as mass-storage.

Since the storage device is removable we believe that the cloud icons become redundant. That said, FileProvider is a great API to offer a native UX to the end-customer.

Are there any alternatives to FileProvider to achieve a similar feature-set? Since kext's has been phased out, perhaps an emulated NFS mount would be better!?

We want to make use of native Apple API's though where FP is very close to what we need (minus the cloud behaviour and decorators)

please help comment

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