This is perfectly timed, as I wanted to find a way to programmatically modify my Mac's AppleScript display settings/theme. For whatever reason, they're stored as typedstream format, embedded in a plist in base64. Found an old implementation/header from 1999 from Mac OS X Server v1.2, signed by Bertrand Serlet, and was going to dig in when I found the time. Now I can dig into this.
The plist is probably a binary plist (header bytes `bplist00`) generated by NSKeyedArchiver, and then the specific data you need is encoded inside. Edited iMessages are stored in the exact same way. Luckily the plist itself is not that complex–but typedstream is pesky to work with.
The plist is no issue, but it's the values therein where you run into typedstreams. For every setting for the Script Editor's formatting, is a separate dictionary, with an NSColor and NSFont key set to a data type value. The data is a base64 encoded `streamtyped` file. Passing it through base64 decode and running `file` on the output gives back `NeXT/Apple typedstream data, little endian, version 4, system 1000`, just as in the OP.
Question from a relatively uninformed sysadmin/freelance I.T. provider—will these new iMessage functions allow for 3rd-party applications (ie—CRMs, client support platforms, etc.) to read and/or work with incoming iMessages from my iCloud account? The only thing I really miss since coming from Android was my ability to consolidate all of my client communications, many of whom send text messages first and foremost (which I prefer).
Apple provides Messages for Business [0], but if you have a machine that can read the iMessages as they come in, you could use the library [1] that powers `imessage-exporter` as a bridge.
Don’t know if it helps, but I know iMessage stores message data on MacBooks inside a SQLite file; I was scanning through it previously because I was trying to do a bulk search
Very much so. Pretty much all of these protocols are simplifications of asn1 and in some cases (like protobuf) there are a handful of things that got lost because the wire formats didn’t have them as they didn’t need them. A schema indicator being the single biggest flaw in protobuf.
iMessage uses a very strange amalgamation of typedstream (message content), keyed archives (app messages, sticker data), and protobufs (Digital Touch, handwriting) for different features. I wonder what motivated all of those design decisions.
This is stuff is such a PIA to parse. I assume it's just different teams doing different features over the years, and being alternately repulsed/seduced by each format. Probably features are implemented as libraries so there isn't a master oversight - they aren't trying to make iMessage's internal formats follow a consistent plan, just let all the libs coexist...
