original application icons

[john mumme]

Two issues that I would very much appreciate some help with.
First, does anyone know if there is a way to get the original application icons to appear in Finder windows? So that a Word document looks like Word, a pdf file looks like Adobe, Excel like Excel, and so on? Just about all the files have the same generic icon that is meaningless.
SEcond, instead of all the folders up top above the files as in Windows, everything is alphabetised, so that the folders and files are all intermixed, and how many folders there are mixed in with the fiolrs is not immediately apparent.
I have just bought an iMac G5 and am very disappointed in the way the finder works compared to the window equivalent.
Although perhaps there are some settings controls that will fix things?
Any advice appreciated.

 

[mad jew]

The icon problem doesn't sound right to me. If you don't have the applications (Office etc.) the icons will show up all generic like but otherwise you have a problem. Try repairing permissions using Disk Utility in the Utilities folder in Applications. Hopefully that'll put them right.

As for the folder sorting in the finder, try sorting by type instead of alphabetically. I'm not near my Mac so I'm not sure if this will work but it will keep the folders separate from files etc and it should still keep them alphabetized in their respective groups. Fingers crossed!

 

[john mumme]

Thanks.
The sorting idea worked well, but repairing permissions doesn't appear to have helped. The only place that "real" applications appear is in the Applications folder iteself! The real icons appear there but nowhere else. FRRRRRRUSTRATION

john

 

[mad jew]

You come from a Windows world so this probably isn't it, but if you double click on the files, do they open immediately with the right application or do they give you a list of apps to choose from. Is there any chance that you've deleted the suffix (.doc) and OSX has forgotten what to do with it?

Also, by generic icon, do you mean the white-file-with-nothing-on-it icon for all the icon-less files?

 

[frenetic]

If I remember correctly, you should rebuild the LS database (the equivalent of rebuilding the desktop is OS 9). Download Panther Cache Cleaner, and it has an option to do so. That should fix it (correct me if I am wrong).