Versions 1.x of Joliet Volume Access are
freeware.
Versions 2.x and later are shareware, that is, you
are expected to pay for them if you want to use those enhanced
versions.
What is it?
Joliet Volume Access is a File
System , that is, it allows you to read disks in a certain
format.
This File System supports reading the following formats: ISO 9660 Level 1 to 3 and
Joliet.
It is functionally a replacement for Apple's ISO 9660 File
Access extension, with the following advantages over
Apple's:
Supports Joliet and ISO 9660 Level 3 formats
Uses Internet Config's File Mappings
Browses directories faster
Supports PBCatSearch, thus making searches using Sherlock (aka
Find File) on ISO or Joliet formatted disks much faster.
If a file name is longer than 31 characters, you can still see
the full name in the comments field of the Finder's Information
window.
Folder view is "as List" instead of "as Icons", which makes
ISO CDs more pleasant to browse.
The upcoming shareware version will provide even
more functionality, such as:
Read CDs in RockRidge format
Mount previous sessions of a multi-session CD
Access the ISO representation of a hybrid CD instead of just
the HFS side.
Make hidden files visible
Choose the default view for the Finder (as List, as Icons,
large or small, ...)
Play Video CDs without the need to switch to Apple's
ISO File Access
Choose the default File Type for files without a specific name
extension.
Improved naming options for long file names, especially for
MP3 CDs
Have a good feeling because you've finally been able to
compensate me for this great piece of free software.
Receive my thanks.
Of course, all these enhancements only work on disks that use the
ISO 9660 or Joliet format, but not on HFS and other disks.
Why?
When Microsoft introduced Windows 95 with long file names (up to
255 chars, I believe), they also extended the ISO 9660 format to
allow storage of files with such long Windows names on CD-ROMs. This
extension is called the Joliet format.
Apple, however, never caught up with support for the new format.
Thus, if you try to read a CD-ROM with contents from a modern Windows
system, you will not see the original long Windows file names, but
instead only "8.3" mangled names (which is a fallback provided for in
the Joliet format). For example, a Windows file called "Carl's very
interesting story.doc" would show up on a Macintosh as something like
"CARL_SVE.DOC".
Here comes Joliet Volume Access to the rescue: As
long as the original name was not longer than 31 chars, the name will
display completely on your Mac now. Longer names will be truncated,
but in quite a smart way, plus, the full name is still shown in the
Comment field of the Finder's Information window.
Additionally, some CD-ROMs might have used ISO 9660 Level 3, which
allows fragmented files. This is not supported by Apple's File
System, and makes those fragmented files unreadable on a Mac.
Joliet Volume Access solves this problem, too.
How to install and use
Simply place the file called Joliet Volume
Access
into your Extensions folder and restart.
(Note: If you run System 7.5 or earlier, you also need to put the
File System Manager, available from
http://http.tempel.org/ftp/pub/Mac/FileSystemManager.sit, into the
Extensions folder.)
You do not have to remove Apple's ISO 9660 File Access. If you
leave it installed, it occupies very little RAM and it allows you to
mount CDs with Apple's File System using the tools mentioned
below, without having to restart your Mac.
From then on, if you insert a ISO 9660 or Joliet formatted CD (or
DVD), it will be controlled by this new software, giving you the
benefits mentioned above.
As an indication that you have actually mounted a media with one of
these formats, the media icon will look like this:
Joliet volumes:
All other ISO 9660 volumes:
Some non-Apple CD drivers, however, may still show a generic CD
icon even if the volume is mounted by this Joliet File System. The
final and proper way to check the volume format is to use the
Finder's "Information" window on the volume icon. There's a field
called Format: which then would show "ISO 9660 Lvl3 + Joliet"
Optional Tools
There are also some other tools if you like more control over how
your CDs are mounted:
UDF/ISO/Joliet Switcher
This is a Contextual Menu Plug-In that allows you to re-mount a
already mounted disk in a different format, assuming it is either
in ISO 9660, Joliet or UDF format.
UDF/ISO/Joliet Enabler
This is a Control Strip Module that allows you to enable/disable
any of the installed ISO, Joliet and UDF File Systems. For
example, if you want to prevent a UDF Hybrid CD (one that has both
a UDF and a ISO 9660 format) from being mounted in the UDF format,
you could turn it off before inserting the CD.
Known problems and restrictions
So-called Hybrid CDs (containing both a HFS and a
ISO/Joliet format) show up as HFS volumes on a Mac, and as
ISO/Joliet volumes on Windows and other systems.
However, the upcoming shareware version will give you access to
the ISO side of the CD on a Mac, too.
If you think that this Joliet File System does not perform as
expected, for instance, if you find that certain software can not
open files from a Joliet CD, or if certain CDs that look well on a
Windows system do not do so on your Mac with this File System
installed, then follow these steps, please:
First, check my web site for a newer version of this extension
and see if the problem goes away with the new version.
Next, make sure that the Joliet File System is properly
enabled. This is the case when you see one of the icons shown
above when inserting a CD with ISO or Joliet format. If that does
not happen, you should use the UDF/ISO/Joliet Switcher mentioned
above to make sure that the File System is indeed enabled (this is
the case when the names "Joliet (Tempel)" and "ISO ... (Tempel)"
appear when you click on the installed Control Strip module and if
they show a "•" in front of them.
If the trouble you experience is related to a certain CD
(while other Joliet CDs seem to work properly), you can use the
"Grab CD" tool (which I can send you by e-mail) in order to create
a file of about 1-2 MB in size, which you can then compress and
send to me via e-mail. I can then try to find the problem and
perhaps fix it.
If the trouble is application-related, first make sure that
the problem goes away when you first copy the data from the CD
onto your hard disk. If the problem still persists when accessing
the data from the hard disk, it is probably a limitation of the
Joliet format and a fix is not very likely.
Otherwise, please contact me and tell me the details (which
application, version, which steps, and include the data if
possible), so that I can try to fix it.
My e-mail address is:
Distribution rules
This software (Joliet Volume Access 1.x) is
freeware. It is free for personal use, and may be
distributed by any individual person as long as this software is not
used as a significant part of a commercial distribution. This means:
If you distribute this software as part of a collection of many other
free software items (such as shareware CDs, web sites for free
downloading of software), it is OK. On the other hand, if you use
this software explicitly for increasing revenue, or want to bundle it
with a commercial product (including shareware), you need to request
permission first.
If in doubt, contact me, the author: .
Version 2.0 and later of this software will not be free any
more. For more information, visit my website.
Credits
Many thanks to Markus Fest for giving me time and "financial
support" to work on this, to Rainer Schwake for providing the icons,
and to Darrel E. Knutson for improving my English.
And I also thank all the people who sent me friendly mails, either to
just say thanks or to help me in solving problems with the
software.
Version History
Version
Release Date
Changes
1.0
May 8, 2000
First public release
1.1
May 13, 2000
Multi-Session CD problems solved (caused by both
FWB's CD-ROM drivers and by Adaptec's EZ CD
Creator software).
Increased System Heap Size allocation (Conflict
Catcher did report it as a potential problem).
1.2
May 31, 2000
There had been an error related to disabling Apple's
ISO 9660 File Access. The error was caused both by
the Joliet extension as well as by the UDF/ISO/Joliet
Enabler Control Strip Module.
So be sure to update all three
extensions!
Crashes related to CD-ROM SpeedTools (as well
as with Toast CD Reader) have been fixed.
Joliet CDs mounted through AppleShare do not
crash the server any more.
Sherlock (Find File) and Window
Monkey related errors have been fixed.
A seldomly occuring error when mounting volumes has
been fixed (appeared in various forms, such as error -55,
as double mounted volumes or with the alert msg "The
disk ... can not be used, because the folder can't be
found.").
A programming error in Iomega FindIt caused it to
crash when cataloging a Joliet CD. I work-around this in
the Joliet FS now, but it has the side-effect that any
Joliet volume appears to have only 2 files on it when you
use "Get Information" in the Finder on the volume. I plan
provide a better fix in the next release of the Joliet
FS.
It seems that the crashes related to using Outlook
Express are gone, too.
Some badly mastered CDs (such as the Windows 98 OEM
CD, made with Microsoft software - go figure!) specify a
wrong value for the length of directories on the CD. This
had the effect that larger directories did not show all
the files (some of the files at the of the the dir were
not shown). I changed the Joliet File System so that it
now can deal with this error properly.
1.3
July 9, 2000
File names ending in a "." are now properly
displayed. Before, a trailing period was cut off from the
name.
Fixed a crash that happened on some systems, related
to Internet Config.
Fixed a conflict with Apple's ISO 9660 File Access:
Mounting HFS/ISO hybrid discs failed sometimes with a
strange effect (such as Error -120 or by ejecting the CD
and then requesting it to be inserted again).
1.4
May 6, 2001
Thai language character support. My thanks go
to Phat for his help and hospitality!
Multi-Session CDs that have an ISO volume in
he last, but not in the first session, do now mount.
Enhanced and Mixed Mode CDs now mount
both the Data and the Audio parts.
Acrobat Reader can now access PDF indexes on
CDs.
Fixed a bug in File Mgr function OpenWD() that could
result in "error -120".
If two identical copies of an ISO volume are
inserted, they now get mounted as two volumes (formerly,
only one volume would appear).
Ejecting a CD from the File Selection Dialog
works now.
Fixed a potential crash situation around
asynchronuous calls to the File System.
Improved the way file names are abbreviated in order
to avoid the effect that multiple identical names
appear in a folder (this would only happen with ISO
volumes that violated the specifications, but
unfortunately, those are out there).
Files can now be opened in "shared r/w" mode,
allowing Audion and other programs to access files
on Joliet CDs.
Fixed the problem with FrenchSystems
where the the localized "Foreign File Access" was loaded
after the Joliet extension. The workaround (rename either
file) is not necessary any more.
CDs created by Adaptec DirectCD for Windows do
now mount (this was a problem in Apple's code which does
not comply with the UDF standard here, but I found a
smart work-around).
Video CDs can now be played if you have
QuickTime 5.0.1 or later installed.
1.4.1
May 14, 2001
Files with extensions (suffixes) get now the proper
icons (type & creator codes) again as assigned in the
Internet or File Exchange control panel.
1.4.2
June 3, 2001
Contrary to what was intended in version 1.4,
Video CDs could not be played with QuickTime 5.0.1
or later installed. Now, finally, it works.
Certain Hybrid CDs (those with both HFS and ISO 9660
formats) made by "mkisofs" (a unix program) were
mounted by v1.4 and 1.4.1 in their ISO 9660 format and
not in their preferred HFS format. Now, it's back to the
way it should be (and as it was until and including
v1.3): HFS is preferred over ISO format if both are
available on a CD.
Famous last words
It took me a few months to write the major code of this software
and another three years to finish it while being busy with DirectCD
for Mac OS. I'm glad I finally finished it for public release. Better
late than never.
