If you have been unsatisfied with Apple's System 7.x formatting of text-view windows in the Finder (view by name, view by date), etc., these files may be for you.
Any one of the three "Finder Preferences" files included in this package,
"Finder Preferences-0"
"Finder Preferences-ver"
"Finder Preferences-ver,size"
can be renamed to "Finder Preferences" by deleting the trailing characters and then copied into the Preferences folder to replace the Apple-default one. Then you must restart your Mac.
WHY?
These files will change the text-view formatting in Finder windows:
• 1. Most noticeable will be the much wider "Name" field--wide enough to never truncate a file name or folder name. If you open a folder by clicking on the triangle icon to the left of the folder icon, the entire column will automatically widen to accomodate the hierarchically presented contents (they will not be truncated either). Later, when you close the folder the column width will return to the previous width.
• 2. The Size field will be a little wider, to accommodate huge folder sizes.
• 3. The Kind field will be a little narrower.
• 4. The Last Modified filed is narrower, and uses the short date format with no weekday. I.e., mm/dd/yy, hh:mm AM. This may be a little different on your system if you have changed the format by another means.
• 5. There are no Labels or Comments fields.
• 6. (With "Finder Preferences-ver") Adds Version field at end.
• 7. (With "Finder Preferences-ver,size") Adds Version field, and shows calculated folder sizes as well as application sizes. Very slow on slower Macs or huge disks.
Why these particular three formats? I like them. I spent hours making these for my own use, and was not about to make hundreds of such files for all the possible combinations of "Show xxxx" choices in the Views control panel. I hope you like them.
BUT....
There is a catch! Although replacing your Finder Preferences with one of these and restarting will put these changes into effect even after multiple restarts and/or shutdowns, using the Views control panel will (usually) replace the file with Apple's default version. All modifications will be wiped out.
This is annoying, but I can easily live with it to get my preferred layout (I, like many who switched to System 7, never forgot how nice it was in System 6 using Mike O'Connor's wonderful Layout program.)
HOW?
My standard procedure for living with this situation, aside from refraining from using the Views control panel except when I really, really, feel the need to change views immediately--is as follows:
• a. First, make sure to keep a backup of these three files, since your active ones are sure to be bashed occasionally by the Finder.
• b. Copy all three, without changing their names, into the Preferences folder.
• c. Whenever you want to change views, or restore a bashed file, open the Preferences folder and drag the currently active "Finder Preferences" into the trash (it will continue to be the active one until restart). Then select the customized file you want to use and choose Duplicate in the File menu, or just hold down the command key while hitting the D key. Delete all the trailing characters from the new file's name, leaving just the name "Finder Preferences". After restarting, this file will determine the views.
OK....
That's all you need to do to get customized text-view layouts in System 7.x--at least any of my 3 favorite custom layouts.
To create your own custom layouts, you will have to read on, below. But, be forwarned--it is very, very tricky to achieve, and you have to use a special version of ResEdit that was on one of Apple's Developer CD's. Beware: using ResEdit can destroy files if you don't know what you are doing, and even if you do!
OK, you wouldn't listen, so here goes. Apple put a special version of ResEdit 2.1.1 on one of their Developer CD-ROM disks sometime last summer. It is called "ResEdit 2.1.1+fvew ed" and the file is dated 4/8/92. Without it you cannot do the following. If you or your company don't subscribe to this CD series, you are out of luck. That's why I uploaded just the preferences files.
Well, you can do one thing. If you have the standard ResEdit 2.1.1, which has an fval template, you can open a copy of the Finder Preferences (hereinafter called FP) file with it, double-click on the fval resource and change the Date Abbreviation field to 0 to get the shorter format. The standard value is 2.
Before using the fvew editor, select the basic view you want in the Views control panel, unchecking fields you don't want. Then copy the active FP file and open the copy for editing. Open one of the 2 fvew resources in the FP file. It will be necessary to edit both of them to get the newly positioned fields to line up with their titles. Unfortunately, the editor only lets you see one at a time, so you might want to actually measure them.
When you double-click on one of the fvew resources, you get a huge dialog with lots of fields and many pages. I just skip all this by pressing the Rectangle Editor button, which lets you change things graphically. Mostly you get standard ResEdit text fields which you can move around and resize.
The first one, fvew ID-3002, has 2 rows of text fields. The top one is for the "nn items", "nn MB in disk", and nn MB available" fields (optionally visible via the Veiws CP), which automatically get left, center, and right justified. Leave them alone. The 2nd row is for the column headings ("Name", "Size", etc.). Leave the icon boxes to the left of the Name field, and the Name field itself, alone. All you have to do here is move the other fields horizontally to where you want them to be in the default (no hierarchical folders open) view.
The other one, fvew ID-3102, has just 1 row of text fields. these are similar to the column headings fields just edited, but determine the position and size of the actual file info displayed for each file. The position of the left side of each text box determines the beginning of the corresponding field (column), the right side determines the width of the field before truncation occurs, and the height determines the spacing between rows. The large surrounding rectangle determines the window zoom size for this view. (If I remember correctly.)
You are on your own from here. It is much harder in reality than I have indicated, but with patience, perserverance, and a lot of trial-and-error restarts, you just might get a layout you can be proud of. Good luck.
