I have a situation where I would love to be able to automate the positioning of icons in a Finder window. I imagine that the same thing might be used on the Desktop, but that's a bonus, not my immediate requirement. Are there any mechanisms, in KBM or AppleScript or ?? to do things like: Select a…

There's a chance I've forgotten a main requirement of all this, but... Could you name all the files with a prepended number and then use Finder's built-in Clean Up By Name function to set their position?

[image] edmechem: it looks like it has commands to save positions of items in a Finder window Thanks for pointer, Ed @edmechem , and the reminder. I've been meaning to look into that. I have DIM installed and I've also downloaded the source from Github. I've been in contact with the developer…

[image] noisneil: Could you name all the files with a prepended number Thanks, I had thought of that, but wasn't really enthusiastic. For my aesthetics, I would have to temporarily rename everything by adding the numbers, do the "Clean up", and then rename everything back. That requires messi…

Hi @noisneil , To get back to your previous question: [image] August: [image] noisneil: Why not set DeskSpaceID as the default app for those files? At the moment, I need them to be RTF or RTFD to be able to get the thumbnails. I tried changing them to *.dsid files and set that to automat…

[image] August: [image] noisneil: Why not use custom file icons? Because thumbnails automatically change. Custom file icons would require automating the creation of the icons and automating the setting of the icons on the files. Doable, but transparently automatic seems better in this rou…

I just replied to that thread. You can change the default app for all selected files at once by using ⌥⌘I.

[image] noisneil: You can change the default app for all selected files at once by using ⌥⌘I. I wish I'd seen this note a few hours ago. Instead I selected a bunch of files and pressed ⌘I, so I got an Info dialog for each file and had to change the default app for each one. About 30 drop-down…

[image] August: Here's what I'm working on: This is...awe inspiring. Truly a work of art.

[image] avtraino: This is...awe inspiring. Truly a work of art. Thanks. I appreciate the comments. Along with collaborations like from @noisneil , it helps keep me thinking of how to share it, not just how to make it work for me, ideosyncratically.

[image] August: I'd like to work out a way to open the folder on the current desktop and have it automatically select whichever file is already on that desktop, thus highlighting the current DeskSpace. I have this worked out. If Finder does not have the DeskSpaceIDs folder open in the current…

Arranging Icons in Finder Icon View

Questions & Suggestions

August October 21, 2023, 7:20am 47

BTW, I found another Forum thread from 2018 that contains the start of an answer to this question, dealing with moving one icon and finding the position coordinates of where you want to move it to.

It also uses AppleScript to both get and set the icon position.

Arranging Icons in Finder Icon View

Options