Problems

Before you send us a question or a bug report, please check this list of known problems and their solutions. If your problem is listed here, you may find a solution for it here as well.

Unfortunately, not all problems have solutions. Although we intend to make The Tilery work as smoothly as possible, please understand that many of these problems are outside our control. Rest assured that we will fix the ones we can fix, as soon as we can do so.

If your problem is not in this list, please write to us, either via e-mail at rick@kagi.com, or via regular mail at:

  Semicolon Software
  P.O. Box 371
  Cupertino, CA   95015-0371

Please mention which version of The Tilery you are using. Any other details you can include about your Macintosh and system software, or the way you are using The Tilery, will be helpful. Thank you!

Common Problems

The Tilery needs more memory.
If The Tilery is low on memory, many of its features become unavailable. Most of its menu items will be dimmed; the tiles will not respond when you try to drag Finder icons to them; clicking on folder tiles and on some other tiles will not work. Sometimes some of the tiles will display generic icons instead of their correct icons. If enough memory later gets freed up, these features will begin working again.

The Tilery will tell you when memory gets low by displaying an alert the next time it is frontmost.

The solution to memory troubles is to quit from The Tilery, do “Get Info” on it from the Finder, and increase its “Preferred Size” before starting it up again. See the chapter “Memory” in this document, and the “Memory” item in The Tilery’s Help menu, for more information.

You can check the amount of free memory available to The Tilery by selecting “About The Tilery” from the Apple menu. (But if memory is already too low, that menu item will not be available.)

Your system does not have Macintosh Drag and Drop.
If your system lacks Macintosh Drag and Drop, you will not be able to drag Finder icons onto the tiles. If you try, the tiles will not highlight when you drag over them, and nothing will happen when you drop something on a tile.

Your system does not have the Scriptable Finder.
If your system lacks the Scriptable Finder, some varieties of tiles will not work. In fact, they usually can’t even be created: if you drag a folder from a Finder window and try to drop it on The Tilery, nothing will happen. Folder tiles, Trash tiles, Control Panel tiles, and a few other varieties require the Scriptable Finder. In addition, the Find Original menu item requires the Scriptable Finder, and will be dimmed and unavailable in its absence. Tiles for applications and ordinary documents will still work.

You have not selected a tile.
Some of the menu items in the Tile menu are dimmed and unavailable until you select a tile. To select a tile, ⌘-click it.

Less Common Problems

The Hot Spots don’t work when I’m dragging an icon from the Finder.
The System Software won’t allow application switching to take place while anything is being dragged. For that reason, The Tilery’s hot spots don’t work during drags, and there’s nothing The Tilery can do about it. Sorry, but you’ll have to make sure that the tile you’re aiming for is visible before beginning the drag.

When I use “Find Original,” the Finder may not unhighlight other icons correctly.
The Tilery uses Apple Events to tell the Finder to display and highlight an icon. Sometimes this seems to confuse the Finder about what is and isn’t highlighted. So far as we know, this is a Finder bug and is not something that The Tilery can fix. But we’re not sure, and if we learn of a way to fix this problem, we will fix it.

Sometimes when I’m using The Tilery, an application that I’ve hidden will suddenly reappear.
This is a side effect of the Defer to Next App preference. The Tilery can’t always tell when an application is hidden. If it brings a hidden application forward in order to avoid being frontmost itself, the application will be unhidden. If this happens often enough to annoy you, select either Defer to Finder or Don’t Defer instead of Defer to Next App. We may be able to fix this problem in a future release.

When I open a document, its tile doesn’t change color like when I open an application.
The Tilery can’t reliably tell when a document, folder, or control panel is open or closed, so it doesn’t try to. That’s why only application tiles change color when their application is opened.

Some of my tiles have a big red X drawn across them, and they don’t work any more.
The Tilery remembers where to find each tile’s item on your disks. If the item is moved, renamed, or deleted, then The Tilery won’t be able to locate the item. When this happens, the big red X is drawn over the tile so you’ll know that it isn’t working.

Try clicking the tile anyway, if you haven’t already. If the item still can’t be found, a dialog will appear allowing you to forget (delete) the tile, or repair it by showing The Tilery where to find the tile’s item (followed by opening the item, if you wish), or simply cancel leaving the tile unchanged.

If the item should reappear where The Tilery expects it (perhaps because the item’s volume was remounted, or because its original name was restored), or if you successfully repair the tile by showing The Tilery where to find the item, the X will be removed and the tile will work again.

These changes (the appearance and disappearance of the big red X) occur only at startup, or when you try to use the tile. For that reason, a tile may appear to be working (no X) even after you know that its item is unavailable, or may still display the X after you have restored the item. If you try to use a tile, its status and appearance will be correctly updated.

I want to make a tile for the Trash, but I can’t do it.
The system software won’t allow the Trash to be dragged into a Finder window, even if you mean to drop it on an application icon like The Tilery’s. There are two ways to get around this restriction. If your system supports Drag and Drop, you can drag the Trash onto The Tilery’s tile (instead of onto its icon in a Finder window). If your system doesn’t support Drag and Drop, you can make an alias for the Trash, and drop the alias onto The Tilery’s icon in a Finder window (after which you can trash the alias if you don’t need it any more).

I want to make a tile for my hard disk or floppy or file server, but I can’t do it.
The Tilery currently can’t handle tiles for volumes. We hope to add this feature in a future release.

I selected “Show Tile for MacWhatever” but the tile didn’t appear.
There are two possible explanations. First, The Tilery may be low on memory. In this case, the ability to show hidden tiles has been turned off until more memory is available. Second, the tile’s application may not be open; in this case, the tile will appear as usual the next time you launch the application.

The Tilery doesn’t use my old Applicon preference settings.
The Tilery 3.0 and later will not read the preference files created by earlier versions of Applicon. We realize that this is an inconvenience, and we apologize for the necessity. The Tilery’s preference file stores very different kinds and formats of information; also, its new features may lead you to change your preferences anyway. Thank you for your patience in this matter.