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Storing metadata alongside files outside of sandbox
Hello all, I'm the developer of REHex, a hex editor which I have been distributing as an app bundle outside of the app store for a few years. REHex allows assigning various bits of metadata (comments, data types, etc) which get stored as filename.rehex-meta alongside the original filename, this works fine when the app is just a standalone bundle, however, when distributed via the app store, sandboxing seems to be mandatory, and there doesn't appear to be any obvious way to get permission to read/write such files. As fallbacks, I've considered adding support for storing the metadata as an extended attribute instead (which breaks compatibility, and won't translate when the file is on a FAT/etc filesystem or network share), or popping up the save/load dialog a second time for the user to select a .rehex-meta file, adding it to the list of whitelisted files for the application (keeps compatibility, but UX is clunky). Are there any ways I can work around this, or perhaps other methods I should consider for storing the metadata in an Apple-tolerant manner? Thanks
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Apr ’25