Re: Kids love trash icons

[dempson@swell.actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <C9rzI5.BAy@eis.calstate.edu> sjensen@eis.calstate.edu (Steve Jensen) writes:
> Is there any way to keep my students from using the trash icon?

Not that I can think of off-hand.  You can replace the icon with one
of your own design, but I don't know of any method of disabling it,
short of patching code in Finder.

Perhaps a Finder Extension could do something useful here?  You would
need to upgrade to System 6.0 for this to be an option, though.

> Is there any way to keep them out of the control panel?
>
> We use GSOS 5.0 mostly.

If you have a ROM 03, then you can hide the text-based (CDA) control
panel by connecting a jumper on the motherboard.  On the ROM 01, it is
possible to intercept the Control Panel vector with your own code,
which prevents access to the Control Panel (it could even ask for a
password before displaying the Control Panel).

The graphics control panel is easy - if you don't actually need it,
you can disable the Control Panel NDA by using the Icon Info command,
and clicking on the Inactive check-box.  If you were really paranoid,
you could delete the control panel completely.

This isn't really an option if you're using system extensions such as
Pointless, which are accessed through the Control Panel.  In this
case, a better option would be to inactivate or remove the particular
Control Panels that you didn't want the students to use (you can find
them all in the CDEVS folder, under the System folder).

Inactivating them is a better method if you have System 6, because you
can double-click on a CDEV file's icon (in the SYSTEM/CDEVS folder),
and the control panel will open immediately, even if it was inactivate.

This doesn't work for all Control Panels - some need to do special
things at boot time, and won't work properly if you inactivate them
and then try to use them by double-clicking on their icon.


Another possible solution is to use one of the various freeware or
shareware utilities which let you save the parameter RAM to a file on
disk.  You can then use this file to restore any changes made by the
students.  Some of these utilities check for changes while the
computer is booting, and ask if you want to restore the original
settings.
-- 
David Empson                                                               
dempson@swell.actrix.gen.nz                                                
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand