Install this INIT in your extensions folder and restart to be able to view your desktop by small icon, name, kind, or type. It is not entirely practical, however, since System 7 forces the desktop to be viewed by Icon on startup. This may cause your icons to be relocated to places you don't want them to be. Also, this is a quick hack. It has not been tested much (i.e. not for more than five minutes, and only on a single Mac), so use it at your own risk.
This hack may be freely distributed as long as this documentation file and the source are also included. Specifically it may be included on CD ROMS such as the InfoMac CD, BBS in a Box, and Apprentice.
Background information:
The idea for this hack is fairly old. About a year ago I had a half-crash of my Mac which amazingly caused the view menu to be available for the Desktop, and it sort of worked. A quick check in MacsBug ("atba DisableItem ';sw pc A939;g'") learned me that it was fairly easy to implement this behaviour. It also learned me that there were severe problems to maintain the desktop's view, so it never got into a real product. Since I recently read that some people want to have View by small Icon on their Desktops I decided to write a prototype to show others a way to do it. Making it really useful will involve some extra hacking, though (you will have to find the place where the Finder special cases the Desktop Folder, so that the view will be constant across reboots), and with System 7.5, which may break this hack, within sight this may not be worth the trouble (although I have read that 7.5 does a much smarter relocation of icons on the desktop, so if this patch still works under 7.5 it may become bearable)
Programmers information:
The program works by patching out DisableItem. The patch checks whether the currently disabled item is part of the View menu. If this is true EnableItem is called instead; if it is not the case the old DisableItem is called. For speed reasons SmallDesk obtains the address of EnableItem at INIT time. This is potentially a problem since this may circumvent later patches to EnableItem. Another potential problem is that I use some concocted ways to check for the View menu. If your application is called Finder and calls DisableItem for a item of a menu with a four-letter title, the first three of which are Vie, and this call is done before the real Finder gets a chance to do such a call, your application gets targeted, and not the real Finder. Also, once it has found it, the patch uses the handle to the View menu to identify the menu. Quitting and then restarting the Finder will therefore break the program. BTW: it is amazing how often the Finder does call DisableItem during its normal operation. For further information: see the accompanying source code.
