Icons and Extensions

maybe your launchservice db is in trouble.

try to rebuild it.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5744911

Had a 3 hr talk w/Apple today about this very topic. I regularly use column view and rely on visual recognition of file types by glancing at the icons. .pdf's had the adobe red swirl, word files showed a W, etc. With Leopard, you can definitely see the old icons in the finder for a short while when you first open a folder but they are quickly replaced by the new preview icons. So, now all I see are previews of the file and they almost all look alike to me - can't quickly tell the difference between .pdf's, word, excel files.
My question to Apple was how I could force it to use the old file icons I'm used to for column view (or folder or list view) without breaking the quickview or coverflow functions. An interesting side note - VERY old files often don't show the preview icon - Office95 files, very old .pdf's and some other old file types still show the old icons (quickview/coverflow won't work with these files)
The tech bounced the problem around with other techies and called me back after about 1/2 hour and told me that nobody around there knew of a way to not make the new preview file icons overwrite the old ones. Apparently this is a Leopard Feature, not a bug and the new icon preview style is probably integral with the quickview and coverflow functions.
I was hoping there was some preference/switch file I could edit but apparently not (per Apple). They suggested trying one of the forums to see if anyone knew of a "fix" for this "feature" (and the tech asked if I would call him back if I stumbled across one so we're probably not the only folks lamenting the loss of the old file icons).
If anyone knows of a way to fix it so the finder file icons don't get overwritten by the new preview style icons I'd appreciate knowing how to do it.

Just turn off "Show Icon Preview" in the View->Show View Options menu item. Then click the "Use as Defaults" button. You'll need to turn it off for all the different views (list, column, icon and coverflow). The CoverFlow function will still work in the pane at the top. If there are particular folders where you DO want icons drawn you just open that folder, check the "always open" box at the top, and check the box for icon preview. The settings will apply to that folder only.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Thanks - You would think that the Apple techies would have been able to tell me how to do that...
Then again, after delving into the different view panels (different for each view mode) and trying different things from different starting points it's clear that it's still not entirely clear...
Sometimes I get a Set Defaults button in the ShowViewOptions panel, sometimes not. Sometimes the ShowIconPreview button applies to all/most/many folders, sometimes it doesn't.
I probably now have all my folder views settings screwed up beyond all belief.
Next question: Now that I have a better idea of how I might be able to set things up, how do I get rid of all the changes I made across all my folders to get back to a pristine default set for everything so I can start over?

While you could use a Terminal "remove" command to get rid of the invisible .DS_Store files (where information about window states is stored), I'm not going to recommend that because remove commands can be dangerous and it isn't really necessary. All that is necessary is to open a folder, for instance your home folder, uncheck the "Always Open" tick mark at the top if it is checked, cycle thru the different views, setting them as you prefer and clicking the "Use as Defaults" button after things are set as you prefer for each state. Column view doesn't have the button, probably because it is sort of 'unitary'--however you set a window in column view is instantly the way ANY window in column view will look.

After you have done that all windows that do NOT have the "Always Open" option checked will open with your new default settings. If you run into a window that doesn't open as you prefer, hit Command-J and uncheck the "Always Open" box.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Control click View/Show View Options. Uncheck the "Show icon preview" box. The icons will again appear as MS Word, Adobe, etc.

I spent 2 and a half hours with Apple Care phone support and finally found this out from the manager of my local Apple Store Genius Bar.