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Finder Functionality

  • (15) You can move the Trash anywhere you want, and it will stay there. You can make aliases of the Trash. If you’re tired of the Trash warnings, select the Trash icon, Get Info, and turn "Warn before emptying" off.
  • (16) You can move the copy dialog box (the one with the thermometer that goes across) to any place on the desktop (it will stay there!). This works for any of the other thermometer-type dialogs in the Finder such as those that go with Empty Trash and Find.
  • (17) Sound resources in snd format can be handled in new ways. Those that are in the System can be played in the Finder, they can be copied, pasted into the Scrapbook, the Sound cdev, ResEdit, etc. When sounds are pasted into the Sound cdev, it asks you for a name. If you want the Mac to play a sound on startup, just place that sound file or an alias to it in your Startup Items folder.
  • (18) A good place to play with or show off Balloon help is in the Control Panel devices that came with System 7.

Aliases

  • (19) Opening an alias to a fileserver in an open dialog will open that fileserver for you, likewise dragging a file to an alias of a fileserver copies the file to that fileserver after mounting it. AppleTalk Remote Access will even connect to a server automatically if you double-click on an alias that goes to a remote server.
  • (20) If you have limited screen space, put an alias to your hard disk(s) in your Apple Menu Items folder and you can always open your hard disk(s). This also works with shared volumes.

Files, Folders, & Disks

  • (21) If you click directly on the name of a file or folder, you may type immediately and the name will be changed. You can do this repeatedly, i.e. rename one file this way, click on another filename and immediately start typing to rename it. You can also click on a name, and immediately move the mouse and the Rectangle Box for editing the name will highlight right away. Hitting return after selecting the icon will also allow to start editing right away. If you still don’t like the rename delay, see TidBITS-099/ Finder_Fun for a way to shut it off.
  • (22) System 7.0 does not show the total size of your disk partition because it only shows user available space. The big files that take away space are the directory, catalog, file and extents file. For example, my Mac partition is set at almost 82 MB but the Finder reports 68.9 in disk and 9.8 available which adds up to 78.7 MB – over 3 MB "missing."
  • (23) The easiest way to keep people from assigning custom icons to files in public labs etc., might be to disable the Paste menu item in the Finder.
  • (24) Command-Y (the command key equivalent to Put Away under the File menu) in the Finder will dismount any selected volume (except the Startup volume). This is often easier than dragging the disk to the Trash.

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