Desktop rearranged

[Dick Miller]

I have two hard drives parationed into five drives, Drive 1, 2,3,4,5. Untill a couple of hours ago they were in num. order on my desktop. Now they appear as Drive 1,2,3,5,4. I have rebuild the desktop, zaped the pram. Ran Norton, Techtool Deluxe, DFA. If I change them into the correct order then select view by name they go back out of order again. Any ideas? I dont know what else to check.

G3 233 Sys. 9.1

[Xairbusdriver]

Don't know for sure, but have you checked to see if you accidently put an extra 'space' before '1','2','3',& '5'? That's the only way I can get files to line up in the order you mentioned. Can't remember ever using that option before!    I can see some advantages...

Jim C.

[krissel]

I don't know about X but in the previous OS 8 and 9 the following was true:

 

quote:  Finder orders partitions on the desktop in the following manner:

1. Boot partition
2. Non removable partitions
3. Removable partitions (like Zip, CD-ROM, etc)
4. Mounted servers

Within groups 2, 3 and 4, the items are ordered by the amount of space used on the partition (as opposed to the size of the partition). Therefore, as one partition fills up, it's place in the ordering can change.

If you would like to have disks placed in a specific order, there are some shareware apps that do it but you could also use the following AppleScript. Paste  the script into a Script Editor window:

--Begin AppleScript
property DiskNames : {}
property DiskLocations : {}

if DiskNames is {} then -- first time, initialize
--capture current values to persistent property variables
tell application "Finder"
set DiskNames to the name of every disk of the desktop
set DiskLocations to the position of every disk of the desktop
end tell
else
--set positions from retained values
repeat with i from 1 to number of DiskNames
set DiskName to item i of DiskNames
tell application "Finder"
if disk DiskName of desktop exists then --present now?
set the position of disk DiskName of desktop to item i of DiskLocations
end if
end tell
end repeat
end if
--End AppleScript

Save the AppleScript as an application with the "Never Show Startup Screen" option checked.

Arrange the disks on your desktop as you would like them to reappear after startup. Run this AppleScript application once, to capture the current disk positions. Place this AppleScript application in your Startup Items folder and when it runs on each startup, it will move disks to the saved locations.

If you wish to change the saved ordering of this applet, open it in the Script Editor, recompile and save it again. The first time it's run again, it will recapture the current disk positions.

If you plan to change the disk order frequently and would like more flexibility to interact with the AppleScript, here's another alternative. Replace the third line of the above script (with the comment about first time, initialize) with the following:

--Interactive AppleScript
set DialogMsg to
"Save current disk locations or restore locations from previously saved?" set DialogButtons to {"Cancel", "Save", "Restore"}

display dialog DialogMsg with icon note buttons DialogButtons default button 3 set ButtonClicked to button returned of the result
-- Cancel never even gets here

-- if ButtonClicked is "Save" then

With the addition of these statements, the AppleScript application will ask you every time it's run whether you wish to save or restore the disk locations. This interaction may become annoying every time you startup your machine. The first AppleScript form will quietly restore the disk positions without no user interaction.

I didn't create this script, just copied it long ago.

If you''re using X, then I don't know.

[Dick Miller]

Thanks for the great info, Krissel and Jim, TS always comes through.      

Dick
P.S. Krissel, you "hit the nail right on the head", the amount of space used on partition 5 changed and that changed the load order.

Thanks again
 
 [ 02-22-2003, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: Dick Miller ]

[sunset]

Dick, the shareware program "Desktop Resetter 2", by Nick D'Amato, works beautifully for that problem.  I've used it for many years, through 9.2.2!        

Good luck!

[Dick Miller]

Thanks Sunset, where would I find that program?    
Dick

[krissel]

desktop resetter home

[Dick Miller]

Thanks Krissel, I just downloaded it.