Fix position of disk icons on desktop, howto?

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• Reply 1 of 4

  rick1138 Posts: 938member

  January 20, 2002 3:30AM

  There may be some way to do this a la defaults write com.apple.Terminal TerminalOpaqueness x .The Finder app is
  
  at System>Library>CoreServices>Finder If you open up the package you can find the resource file in Contents.The Finder's executable binary is in Contents>MacOS.Unfortunately by hacking the Resource file you can only change the appearance of the icons and not the postiton.The code that controls the position is most likely in the the binary file,which is pretty hard to crack,if you know how to do this,please tell me.
  
  
  
  As for the Finder preferences file,it is at Users>(I assume Kate)>Library>ByHost>com.apple.systempref erences.000a27973efc.plist You can open it up and edit it using the Property List Editor,but I don't see anything regarding the position of Icons.
• Reply 2 of 4

  neutrino23 Posts: 1,562member

  January 22, 2002 4:01AM

  The easiest workaround is to use Applescript. Depending how creative you want to get there are various ways to write a script that will set the desktop (or any folder) they way you want it.
  
  
  
  Simple but less flexible
  
  Simply write a script that tells the finder to set the position of each file and folder you name to some position.
  
  
  
  Harder but more flexible.
  
  Write two scripts. One that takes a snapshot of the desktop and one that restores the desktop to the last snapshot.
  
  
  
  In either case set the script that restores the desktop to run automatically when you log in.
  
  
  
  [ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: neutrino23 ]</p>
• Reply 3 of 4

  retrograde Posts: 503member

  January 23, 2002 3:45AM

  [quote]Originally posted by neutrino23:
  
  <strong>In either case set the script that restores the desktop to run automatically when you log in.</strong><hr></blockquote>
  
  
  
  This would work for each time you logged into the machine, but there are situations when you may resize the monitor in X and when you switch back the icons are all over the place. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
  
  
  
  This would often happen in 9 as well but one thing you could be sure of was that the Hard Disk would stay in its place at the top right of the screen. Not so in X.
  
  
  
  I guess you could just leave a copy of the script in your favourites or on the desktop and run it whenever the icons are jumbled. Although I would like a solution where you arrange the icons and they simply stay put without any further fuss.
  
  
  
  [edit: spelling]
  
  
  
  [ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Retrograde ]</p>
• Reply 4 of 4

  kate Posts: 172member

  January 23, 2002 1:51PM

  Thanks to all.
  
  
  
  Fact is, there is no way to do this, all drive icons on the desktop and all removable media icons follow a strict rule with regard to their respective position on the desktop.
  
  
  
  If you have some items on your desktop and arranged them by no specific order, which means they aren't arranged at all, the place where a new mount will appear gets highly random. It seems that moving the other items by a pixel may cause it to appear on very much different positions far away of each other.
  
  
  
  Soooo, the icons of drives "slip" in the dock, they jump on the desk and they get sometimes hidden in the Finder toolbar, sigh!
  
  
  
  The amount of needless mouse clicking and superfluous mouse hassel is not very pleasing for me. Come 10.2?
  
  
  
  
  
  The AppleScript idea is brilliant, but my script fails to work in that way......anyone with a script idea that'll work?