What is the function of the arrows within circles that appear when the cursor is over a file icon on the desktop?
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arrows on selected file icon on desk top
- Thread starter captainmarryat
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I don't ever see that. But then, you didn't share any info about your setup. However, since I'm still on Snow Leopard, my money is on you not having the same setup as me.
Anyway, have you clicked on it? Obviously, or maybe not, clicking on the one that is greyed out will do nothing. But I bet if you click on the right one, the left one will then be clickable. My guess is that you have two things open in the same app, and clicking the arrow will go to another one right away, saving you the "trouble" of going to it after bringing up a different one. I imagine the one that will be active is the one that was last active, before you minimized it.
Click away! I'd be shocked if doing so would render your Mac unusable.
Anyway, have you clicked on it? Obviously, or maybe not, clicking on the one that is greyed out will do nothing. But I bet if you click on the right one, the left one will then be clickable. My guess is that you have two things open in the same app, and clicking the arrow will go to another one right away, saving you the "trouble" of going to it after bringing up a different one. I imagine the one that will be active is the one that was last active, before you minimized it.
Click away! I'd be shocked if doing so would render your Mac unusable.
the one you're showing is for a multipage document it'll let you advance thru the icon sized pages of the document
singe page pdfs wont have it multi page ones do (along with a little spiral binding along the left hand side of the pdf files icon to denote its a multipage pdf)
for some reason MS word documents have the 'hover over' arrows regardless of whether the doc file is a single page or not (and dont have the multipage spiral binder along the left even when docs are multipage) On word the chances of it actually going thru the pages are slim of the multi page word files I've tried it just doesnt seem to do it
doesnt sound much use but it also creates a play button over music and video icons if you click the button on those it'll play the music track directly or start (a teeny icon sized) playback of the video in the icon.
Edit if you want to turn it off, right click anywhere on the desk top select view options and in the dialog that pops up untick Show Icon Preview (however everything will then be generic icons rather than the document specific thumbnails you've got just now)
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