Moved Applications and lost services function how do I fix?

A

aszoth

Registered
I just bought a G4 Powerbook, and I have spent my free time over the past two days setting up the applications and documents in the places I want them. I have made about 6 folders in the applications folder with broad topics and placed all the applications within the coresponding topic's folder.

What I find now is that I can not longer take advantage of the Services that that are in the menu bar application menu.

On top of that hot plugged items/applications do not automatically start when I plug in the USB device. (On mouse over the program says the hot plug application has a diffrent location then it is actually in.)

When I try and change the appliaction's loaction by "adding" it again, it is grayed out in the selection and will not let me selected it in its new location.

The programs all run fine (either hot plugged or servies) so long as I open the program with inthe finder. What I am wondering is if theire is a way I can tell the computer where the programs are so I can have the services function anf hot plugged items again. Or if I will have to return the applications to the disarry that is the appliaction folder at first start up.
 
just puzzled - you seem hellbent on making the organization fit the methods of previous os's and then complaining that it doesn't work the osx way. why? which way do you want to work? os x has several new ways of organizing - all of them are efficient in one way or another. all of them beat clicking thru folders for the most part. to my knowledge, apple has placed certain items in the applications folder on purpose. you can move them, but you pay a price. apparently you have found part of the cost. another is that if you have moved anything that apple updates thru system updates (like mail), it will not get updated.

my personal suggestion - put them back like they were and spend 3-4 days figuring out which organizational method works best for you.

how i do it - i use a haxie called dock switcher that allows multiple docks. i group my apps in docks like you are attempting to do in folders. there are several apps that allow multiple docks. you can find them and other organizational utilities at www.versiontracker.com.
 
An application can provide a service by having it described in its info.plist (inside the bundle). So, when starting, Mac OS X looks inside /Applications and ~/Applications and read every App's info.plist seeking for services. If your App is not into one of these folders, no more service available...:)
 
Not sure I agree with Ed here. It's not about making it work like another OS. It is making it work for you. I have totally abopted the task based metaphor that OSX introduces. I no longer use the desktop. 'Go Applications', 'Go Home' etc are very efficient. Applications I use every day are on the dock. It's the less frequently used applications that are different. Scrolling through a list of ~100 applications just to find an alternative browser is not fun. A handful of logical groupings makes things a lot easier to use. I tried this, and quickly found that OSX pretty much stops me from doing it effectively. Less than ideal, but I'm prepared to live with it for the productivity gains I get elsewhere.
 
I moved the files back to the application folder without being in subfolders and the services are still not working. Any body have ideas why?

If some one is willing to I would appricate it if they could tell me what apps where inthe ulities folder vs app folder at the basic install. (since I obviously don't know since I moved them around)

-Pip
 
Services only work in Cocoa applications and the very few Carbon apps that have been rewritten to access them. Although the Services menu appears in all applications, it will not be functional in many of them.
 
dazed - i'm not sure we disagree. I just think that there are tools within os x and additional haxies that create new ways of organizing into groupings that are unlike the old ways. and everybody's first instinct (mine included) is to try and organize the old ways. it's counter productive in the end. but it takes really exploring all the possiblities in os x to find the method that works best for each individual. i'm sure my way wouldn't be comfortable for lots of people. and i would cringe at theirs.

and don't expect your first 'comfortable' method to be your last. It really takes months to find all the little nuances of osx. i'm still finding something new every now and then.

and genghis is right of course. i answered originally with the assumption that services that had worked, no longer worked. i wasn't thinking about apps that just plain don't work with services.
 
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