Icons: Stupid question of the day...

Using ClassicWB ADV.

For reasons which escape me, they Shell shortcut has disappeared from the desktop. No problem thought I, I'll just re-add it. Or will I? Being unable to find any obvious (or less obvious) way to do this, I eventually gave up, made a copy of the shell executable and moved the copy to the desktop. So far, so good. Until I try to rename it from Copy_of_Shell to Shell. At this point, it tells me that the file already exists.

I've poked around in Dopus a lot to try and find some kind of Desktop directory, a-la Windows, but no luck. Either I'm looking in the wrong place or have a fundamental misunderstanding. Equally possible, it's both.

Can someone tell me how to do this remarkably simple thing please. Then never mention it again

ta.

Have you created the .info file that is the icon file?

The icon was there right after installing ClassicWB - I did not add it myself. I was suspecting that the .info file was missing, that's why I went off looking for the directory which contains these things, but couldn't find it. I did try show > all files on the desktop though and this did not reveal anything (such as an icon which is missing its .info) If i were to re-create the .info file, where would I save it?

Thanks for the reply!

I'm guessing you put the file away, you need to find it and leave it out again if that makes sense, should be in one of the system drawers. Good luck

In Workbench, the "desktop" is not an actual directory like it is on Windows, it is a temporary construct. So if you move a file onto it, you haven't actually moved it anywhere in the file system and after a reboot it will be back where it started. An exception to this are drive icons which are automatically added and removed.

So when you try to rename "Copy_of_Shell" back to "Shell", you can't, because both are still residing in the same place even if one is visually speaking on the desktop. Instead, what you need to do, is use the "leave out" option in the "icons" menu. This also does not move the file anywhere on the disk but it will keep it on the desktop permanently. This can be undone with the "put away" option.

See, I said it was a stupid question. Steve, ajk, thanks. I also appreciate the explanation.

What a strange mechanic, leave out and put away...

It's these strange mechanics that make the OS so fantastic to use, who doesn't love Ram Disk for example.

The most useful feature in workbench is the 'use' option where you can have a whole set of settings just for that session.

fitzsteve said:

It's these strange mechanics that make the OS so fantastic to use, who doesn't love Ram Disk for example.

Click to expand...

Yup RAM disk is very cool. RAD: is quite cool also ... if (like me) you use Amiga Explorer on windows to chuck stuff from internet -> Amiga via serial null-modem, well dropping a adf file onto RAD: is very cool (saves futzing around for a blank floppy - and when you find a candidate, it always seems to be one where you think "hmmm - actually do I still want that").

Anyone know how to make a non-bootable RAD: ?

...Some of us have only recently acquired enough RAM to make RAMDisk more than a button which mocks how little RAM we have

Well yeah - I'm resurrecting a rev 5 A500 - the one with red power LED- came to me with 512k RAM Its now got a whopping 1MB due to a cleaned up A501 - and as of yesterday it even has a battery-backed clock !!! Still on KS 1.2 booting WB 1.3 from the single floppy drive - very mid-80's Seriously banging my for'ead about chucking some stuff about 5-6 years ago .... I went and binned a perfectly good external floppy drive, a square PSU plug cable (chopped off dead PSU) - a good Amiga mouse, a 23-pin -> SCART cable ..... dooooh.

Currently trying to egg on postie to deliver my 40-pin DIL sockets so I can hack a KS 2.04 ROM into it .... should feel like its moved on a decade or so then

Hmmph. DIL sockets turned up but the KS 2.04 ROM (thats been in my bits box for years) no worky