[X-Newbies] out of control mess

[Melinda Stamp]

>On Friday, October 1, 2004, at 04:24 PM, John Park wrote:
>yes, that would be great!

In addition to having a system of folders for filing, here's a technique that works well for me (assuming that you are using Panther):   

I often save documents to the desktop because it's a good temporary place to leave things I don't want to forget.  To keep the desktop clutter in control I make an alias in the sidebar of my finder windows, for each of my often-used file folders.  Every so often I view the desktop in a finder window and do my "filing" by dragging the documents to the appropriate folder in the sidebar (or to the Trash, whichever is appropriate.)  I find the Panther sidebar to be a great organizational tool.

If you're not using Panther, you can adapt the same technique by creating folder aliases on the desktop -- it's not quite as neat, but it serves the same purpose.

If, like me, you have your documents filed on a separate partition or hard drive, when you drag them off the desktop they will make a copy in the new location and leave the original on the desktop.  This can lead to confusion.  If this is the case, remember to do a command-shift-drag which will move documents rather than a plain drag which copies them.

Hope this helps.

Melinda