Re: Apple's Secret Desktop Sauce

FROM : Mason Mark
DATE : Fri Jun 16 17:38:56 2006

I absolutely hate this evil problem too!

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure this out. I wrote 
the drag and drop code for iGet, which still exhibits this problem, 
and it only makes me feel 2% better that every other Cocoa app has 
the same problem--it still sucks.

Actually, I only notice the problem with respect to "HFS Promise" 
drags of files that don't exist yet.

If I drag a file on remote Mac to the desktop with iGet, it works, 
but I have never been able to make the Finder put the resulting file 
where it was dropped. Other Cocoa apps doing a similar thing have the 
same problem.

On the other hand if I drag some text to the Finder from iGet, it 
gets dropped right where it should. I seem to recall dragging works 
properly when dragging a file that already exists on disk, too.

So I think this may be a quirk specifically of HFS Promise drags. 
Furthermore, I think it is the Finder's fault...

--
Mason Mark
Five Speed Software, Inc.
http://www.fivespeed.com




On Jun 16, 2006, at 6:13 AM, dave miller wrote:

> Just curious...
>
> It seems as though every application from Apple that allows you to 
> drag files/clippings/whatever to the desktop (Mail, Finder, iPhoto, 
> iTunes) will place the dragged item(s) at the location that you 
> dragged it to (which is as it should be). But it seems as though 
> when dragging files/clippings/whatever from a third-party developer 
> application, the dragged item(s) will be placed at seemingly random 
> locations on the desktop. I'm running into the same problem, and I 
> find it *very* frustrating to drag a file from Transmit/Yojimbo/
> etc. to the desktop only to have it placed way on the other side of 
> my display.
>
> Is there a way to specify the location of desktop items through 
> Cocoa (whether the item already exists, or will be created through 
> a drag & drop operation)? I know that you can access the desktop 
> location of an icon through its "desktop position" AppleScript 
> property, but because it's a read-only property that's only good 
> for one-way access. Is there a way to specify this through Carbon 
> or Cocoa? I've searched the developer docs and can't find anything 
> regarding this snag. Thanks!