Re: Desktop Icons

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Rich Hare writes ...
> 
> I've got a new small problem with my IIGS.
> I have a Bluedisk card which has worked very well for years, and still
> does.  I changed a few things around last month, and now have a new
> problem.  Previously, when I put a MSDOS disk in the drive, and pushed
> "Control" to poll the drive, the disk would appear on the desktop and I
> could "drag and drop" to copy from the icon.  (The MSDOS FST is read
> only)
> 
> Now, the icon doesn't appear on the desktop.  The Watson utilities (and
> others as well, such as Utilityworks, find the disk just fine; it just
> doesn't appear on the desktop.
> 
> I've corresponded with Joachim Lange, and he believes some Finder file
> is corrupted:
> "What's going wrong is that the Finder is somewhat confused about your
> icons. It seems that the desktop file is corrupted which results in
> displaying wrong or no icons."
> He suggests that the comp.sys.apple2 group might help me.
 ....

     You can always try scrapping the file named "Desktop" in the ICONS/ folder (on
the boot partition and/or other partitions).  Desktop gets changed from time to
time by programs which want to install their icon(s). Sometimes the result is to
corrupt Desktop.

     A corrupted Desktop file is a fairly common problem for System 6 users who
routinely add new applications and start them directly from the Finder. It's
effects can range from undetectable (almost) up through missing icons and crashing
the system. (Really, the Finder should have some way of validating an icon input to
Desktop from an application. Either it doesn't or the check is inadequate.)

     Scrapping a Desktop file does no great harm. It will be rebuilt by
contributing applications as they are started from the Finder.

     If you notice icon-related problems after using one particular application,
you might try installing the QuickLaunch Finder extra. QL lets you start
applications from a pull-down menu. Besides being very handy, it does seem to
prevent a started application from messing with Desktop. (If you want the applic's
icon to be active, you can add it manually in an icon file in ICONS/ using an icon
editor.)



Rubywand