Command to organize a Finder window

Question

I'm building a packaged-based OS X image, and, with new software added, the Application's folder is a mess (with icons obscuring each other and things in disarray).

I thought deleting the .DS_Store file would fix it, but it doesn't seem to. Is there a command I could run (preferably when not logged in graphically as any user) to mimic the effect of choosing "View -> Keep Arranged By -> Name" in a Finder window in an arbitrary directory?

Answer 1

A given folder's Finder sort attributes appear to actually be stored in its parent folder's .DS_Store. So if you're interested in modifying sorting of the contents of /Applications/MyApp/, you'll need to adjust the contents of /Applications/.DS_Store.

For example, if I diff hexdumps of /Applications/.DS_Store after changing the sorting of /Applications/MyApp from 'name' to 'none', I get this:

@@ -42,8 +42,8 @@
 00000600  00 00 00 23 40 59 00 00  00 00 00 00 23 40 28 00  |...#@Y......#@(.|
 00000610  00 00 00 00 00 23 3f f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00  |.....#?.........|
 00000620  23 3f f0 00 00 00 00 00  00 23 00 00 00 00 00 00  |#?.......#......|
-00000630  00 00 23 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 08 09 54 6e 61  |..#..........Tna|
-00000640  6d 65 09 23 40 48 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 08 00 25  |me.#@H.........%|
+00000630  00 00 23 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 08 09 54 6e 6f  |..#..........Tno|
+00000640  6e 65 09 23 40 48 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 08 00 25  |ne.#@H.........%|
 00000650  00 3b 00 47 00 50 00 65  00 74 00 8b 00 97 00 a3  |.;.G.P.e.t......|
 00000660  00 b0 00 c5 00 d3 00 dd  00 ef 00 f8 01 01 01 0a  |................|
 00000670  01 13 01 1c 01 1e 01 27  01 30 01 39 01 3a 01 3b  |.......'.0.9.:.;|

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any good documentation on the .DS_Store file format, nor do there seem to be any command-line utilities for modifying it.

Answer 2

...or you could go to the Dark Side and use AppleScript.

tell application "Finder"
    set w to make Finder window to folder "MyApp" of folder "Applications" of startup disk
    set p to icon view options of w
    set the current view of w to icon view
    set the icon size of p to 32
    set the label position of p to bottom
    set the arrangement of p to arranged by name
    close w
end tell

...which you can run from the command-line via osascript.

(Based on this example)