[niacin]

i have a small pblm with my OS X 10.0.2

i like my icons to be arranged in a certain way on my desktop.
however, OS X likes to rearrange all of them (except the harddisk) and jumble up their locations whenever i reboot. It's very irritating.

I've put the icons to 'Always snap to grid' under finder preferences and also global view preferences.

Is anyone experiencing the same problems?

[nigeljedi]

This subject has been visited exhaustively. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a good hack or fix and Apple hasn't fixed this with the 10.0.1 or 10.0.2 updates. The only option at this point (as far as I know) is to either choose View-->arrange by name from the menu bar and turn off snap to grid, or just live with the crappy icon implementation.
I am annoyed by this phenomenon as well, and I just have to occasionally choose the above to fix it (i.e., whenever I put a new icon on the desktop).
The "snap to grid" option is bad because it chops off some of the icons...and I noticed that they still don't stay in the traditional location if you move them too far. Either way, your icons shouldn't be re-arranged every time you reboot. That's just plain old weird...

------------------
Enjoy Sunny Graphics/Illustration

[starfleetX]

Yes, this is a well known bug. Actually, according to Apple, it is not a bug. Apple clearly states in one of its hundreds-of-pages-long pdf's (yes, I have been laboriously skimming through them) that the Finder's desktop does not remember icon positions. I'm honestly surprised the desktop remembers positions as well as it does right now. I'll try to find that pdf and get back to you about it...

------------------

[niacin]

Thanks guys

i just find it very disturbing that X is missing so many of the nice things that I found so helpful using OS 9 over Windows. It has added some useful Human Interfacing in the GUI but suddenly seems lacking in all the basic nitty gritty details.

Hopefully later releases will solve this.

[malvolio]

?
I don't have a problem getting my icons to stick. What you need to do is Command-drag them to where you want them to stay.
Doing an update (like to 10.0.3) *does* mess 'em up again, though.

------------------
/mal

[mumble]

Originally posted by starfleetX:
Actually, according to Apple, it is not a bug. Apple clearly states in one of its hundreds-of-pages-long pdf's (yes, I have been laboriously skimming through them) that the Finder's desktop does not remember icon positions.

They clearly do not.

SystemOverview, Preliminary January 2001, page 179:
Finder attributes (also known as Finder Info) can be associated with files and folders in the Mac OS X file system. These attributes affect how the Finder displays or handles these files and folders. The Finder in Mac OS X recognizes fewer such attributes than the Finder in Mac OS 9. The supported attributes include

• bundle bit
• invisible bit
• type and creator codes
• custom icons

The attributes not supported in Mac OS X are

• icon position
• view type
• label

In Mac OS X the Finder stores attributes in an invisible per-folder file that contains a data structure that is extensible and volume-format �agnostic.�

The last sentence is the significant part here, Apple is changing how such file system metadata is stored (files called .DS_Store), not only does X's Finder remember icon position and view type, but it adds backgrounds colours/images.

[This message has been edited by mumble (edited 05-10-2001).]

[pmcd]

This is actually my main complaint with OSX and I hope someone fixes it. In OS9 there was an Applescript to restore icon positions but I can't find one for OSX.

You can arrange the icons b name or by kind on the desktop by using prefedit on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder . Now put either "kind" or "dnam" in the ArrangeBy part of DesktopViewOptions . Kind arrange things by kind and the other by name. But the icons are on the right which I don't like but at least they don't move around.

Philip

Originally posted by niacin:
i have a small pblm with my OS X 10.0.2

i like my icons to be arranged in a certain way on my desktop.
however, OS X likes to rearrange all of them (except the harddisk) and jumble up their locations whenever i reboot. It's very irritating.

I've put the icons to 'Always snap to grid' under finder preferences and also global view preferences.

Is anyone experiencing the same problems?