Wacky Desktop/Finder

[BicyclePunk]

Ok, maybe it's me and maybe I'm missing something really, really simple. But here's the thing. When I double click my HD icon, the window opens but the far left column (with my customizable files n folders, etc) does not appear. Yet when I click on the icons for other mounted drives, that left column does.

And when I have HD windows open in finder, when I'm working in other applications, and want those HD windows in finder to appear, nothing happens when I click on the desktop background. And it's only on this computer. On my iBook, when I click on the background, the open finder windows come to front.

Any advice anyone can give would be great. Thanks!!

 

[ingenious]

SideBar?

Do you mean the side bar? That's easy to fix. Go to view and then i think its show toolbar. Bingo there it is. Once you turn it on, it should stay

Caleb

 

[HexMonkey]

Re: Wacky Desktop/Finder

Originally posted by Calebj14
Do you mean the side bar? That's easy to fix. Go to view and then i think its show toolbar. Bingo there it is. Once you turn it on, it should stay

Even simpler, click on the small rounded rectangle on the top right of a Finder window to turn it on or off.

Originally posted by BicyclePunk
And when I have HD windows open in finder, when I'm working in other applications, and want those HD windows in finder to appear, nothing happens when I click on the desktop background. And it's only on this computer. On my iBook, when I click on the background, the open finder windows come to front.

This is standard behaviour in Mac OS X. In Mac OS 9, activating an application would bring all its windows to the front. In Mac OS X, it just brings that window to the front. When you click on the desktop, Finder activates, but since you didn't click on a window, no window comes to the front.

If you click on the Finder icon in the dock, all Finder windows will come to the front.

 

[BicyclePunk]

Well....the rounded rectangle button on the right does what I want it to...kind of. The thing is that I have three mounted drives on my machine. All but my main HD have the mounted drives in the left of the finder window. Below those, separated with a small rule, are my app folder, user folder and other folders I put in there. Still can't get those to show below the mounted drives when I open the finder window for my main HD. Really weird.

Also, oddly enoug, with Panther on my iBook, when I click on the desktop, open finder windows come to the front. I can't figure that one out.

Thanks for any past and further help!

 

[Makosuke]

Originally posted by BicyclePunk
Below those, separated with a small rule, are my app folder, user folder and other folders I put in there. Still can't get those to show below the mounted drives when I open the finder window for my main HD. Really weird.

Hmm... if you turn the display for that on once, it should stick permanantly. The only time I can think of that wouldn't happen would be if the .DS_Store file at the top level of the hard drive is locked or has its permissions screwed up. That would prevent the OS from saving your view preference (that invisible file is where the OS saves its preferences for how a window is displayed and some related information).

Actually, now that I think of it, that's probably why it only happens on your main drive; since the OS has control of that drive, the permissions are probably set differently. I had a similar problem under 10.2 where any icon rearrangement didn't stick, because my changes weren't getting saved.

The solution would probably be to open terminal and either delete the file or change its permissions to something more friendly.

If you're not familiar with the Terminal, you want to be VERY careful of doing this, so I'd recommend using a utility to make invisible files visible, then delete it that way, but I don't know of any.

Also, oddly enoug, with Panther on my iBook, when I click on the desktop, open finder windows come to the front. I can't figure that one out.

That's weird and it's not supposed to do that--only when you click on the Dock icon. You don't by any chance have ASM or a similar utility installed, do you? That little extra could bring the entire Finder to the front when you clicked on the Desktop, among other things.

 

[BicyclePunk]

Thanks, everyone. I'll probably just live with it the way it is. Defintitely weird about the iBook, but yeah...I don't have anything extra on there...that I know of. Cheers!