Re: No desktop?
Re: No desktop?
- Subject: Re: No desktop?
- From: John W Baxter <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 16:17:47 -0700
At 9:11 -0700 6/1/2002, Paul Berkowitz wrote:
>
Has it always been the case in OS 8/9 that 'choose folder' doesn't let you
>
choose the desktop?
Well, you do have to remember that "the desktop" doesn't exist as a single
file system entity in Mac OS 9 (down to the system released in January,
1984*)
(*The MFS implementation was simply a flag that said "this file/folder is
on the desktop" since folders also didn't exist in MFS (except as Finder
illusions: there was a folder number associated with each file, and all
files were in the single directory for the volume), and therefore there
wasn't a "Desktop Folder".). The visible desktop (and the thing the Finder
calls the desktop in AppleScript) is a Finder artifact which contains the
union of the contents of the (invisible) "Desktop Folder" from each
mounted volume.
This is how one can arrange to have two or more items with identical names
"on the desktop" for the slice of history from the start of "real" HFS
support through Mac OS 9...they are in different folders since they are on
different volumes. [There was a brief time when HFS was only available as
a system Extension...I don't remember the nature of the Finder desktop
during that period. Once "stock" Finder knew about HFS, desktop was the
union of the Desktop Folder folders on the HFS volumes and the
"on-the-desktop" files from the MFS volumes.]
For example, the following is a test script I just ran in Mac OS 9 (copied
by keyboard over to this Mac OS X mail window)
tell application "Finder"
id of every item of desktop whose name is "dns"
end tell
--> {512196, 23999}
Method I used to get "there": find a handy sacrificial file on "the
desktop"...it was located where I could see it, and about to be tossed out
anyhow, and I knew it was on the startup volume.
Drag the file to the icon of the non-startup volume.
Open that volume's Finder window and drag the file to the desktop
(satisfyingly, right below the other one ;-) )
I would guess that the "tricks" which have appeared in this thread select
the "Desktop Folder" which is on the startup volume rather than the one on
any of the non-startup volumes. Except possibly when the startup volume is
a CD or otherwise not writable.
--John (who very clearly uses his startup volume more than his other
volume on that machine)
--
John Baxter email@hidden Port Ludlow, WA, USA
_______________________________________________
applescript-users mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/applescript-users
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
| References: | |
| | >No desktop? (From: Paul Berkowitz <email@hidden>) |