How do I view only the desktop with icons and the finder?

Question

Level 1

0 points

How do I view only the desktop with icons and the finder?

I have a hot corner set up to show the desktop.. in Snow Leopard when I exposed the desktop and then clicked on the finder in the dock *just* the finder would show.

Now, with Lion, when I click on the finder it comes into view but all the other open applications come sweeping back in hiding the desktop.

Can I change this back to the way it was before? Or is there another sneaky quick way to show only the desktop and the finder? Set up an entirely different "desktop" in mission control dedicated only to having nothing open in it?

In short: I need a fast way to drag icons from the desktop into folders in the finder. Also, this is driving me nuts.

thanks to anyone who can help.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Mar 14, 2012 9:39 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Don Archibald

Level 10

101,623 points

Mar 14, 2012 10:39 PM in response to jenhenrichs

If you can see a patch of Desktop, with a program (any program other than Finder) window active, hold down both Option and Command and click that patch of Desktop. This will auto-hide all windows for all other programs and switch focus to the Finder/Desktop at the same time.

This works when going from any active program to another, except that the Desktop itself will not get hidden (open Finder folders will get hidden).

To bring a program's windows back to visible status, just click the program's icon in the Dock. For open Finder windows which are hidden, just click the Desktop (plain click).

*****

If you want to hide the windows of just one program, with it the active program hold down just the Option key and click in the window of another program (the Desktop or a folder window counts for this purpose). All windows of the original program will be hidden, and focus will switch to the second program.

Reply