Examining the Essentials of the Mac OS 9 System Folder

The heart of Mac OS 9 is the System file located in the OS 9 System Folder. This file contains the code that makes Mac OS 9 possible — it provides the basic system services and protocols through which everything else communicates.

In the early days of Mac OS, the System file contained almost everything — fonts, sounds, desk accessories (the original Apple menu items), keyboards, you name it. Due to architectural and space limitations, many of these resources were moved out of the System file to stand alone as files in your System Folder. From this reorganization arose a new problem — System Folder clutter. All of a sudden, there were so many files and folders inside System Folders that most users couldn’t find what they were looking for.

Apple addressed this by introducing specialized folders for classes of System support files — Extensions, Control Panels, Fonts, Preferences, and so forth. Of course, even this organizational setup grew unwieldy as more and more capabilities became available, each capability requiring its own collection of support files in the System Folder. Then, there was the problem of users putting the right files in the right folders when installing new software or accidentally dragging a file to a folder where it didn’t belong.

Adding items to the System Folder

In response to the location difficulties, Apple provided autorouting intelligence to the Finder — you can drop certain file types on the System Folder, and the Finder places them in the correct subfolder for you. Control panels and some applications that have been typed to make them work like control panels are placed in the Control Panels folder; extensions, printer drivers, shared libraries, and the like are routed to the Extensions folder; Sherlock plug-in files are placed in Internet Search Sites; fonts are placed in the Fonts folder; and so forth.

In general, if you have a file that you want in the System Folder, just drag it onto the System Folder’s icon (not into a window that is displaying the System Folder), and it is usually placed where it is supposed to be. As shown in Figure 17-25, the Mac OS X Finder has the same feature as Mac OS 9 did, and will let you know that it is about to autoroute the item (and ask for confirmation that this is what you want it to do). On a rare occasion, you might have a need to place a file in a specific location within the System Folder — such as when you want to add something to your Classic Apple menu. When that is the case, open the System Folder in a Finder window and drag the file to the folder where it needs to be.

Figure 17-25: You don’t have to know where everything in the Classic Folder belongs, or even what you’re putting there — Mac OS X can autoroute the item for you by type, just drop it on the System Folder.

Removing items from the System Folder

Unfortunately, Apple has never developed an automated process for removing items from the System Folder or its subfolders, nor does there exist a really intelligent uninstaller that can determine which items can safely be removed without compromising the usability of existing applications. Some third-party solutions come close, for example Aladdin Systems’ Spring Cleaning, but they do not cover all contingencies and can make serious mistakes, often leaving your system in worse condition that it was before you used them.

To manage extensions and control panels, you should employ the Extensions Manager that comes with Mac OS 9 (see earlier in this Chapter for more information). Deactivate the items you want to remove, and restart the Classic application environment. The deactivated items are now in folders named Extensions (Disabled) and Control Panels (Disabled), and you can safely remove them if you want to free up some disk space. Of course, you can remove items from the Classic application environment’s System Folder when Classic application environment isn’t running without going through these steps. You can remove (or add) fonts while the Classic application environment is running, but it is best that no Classic applications are running to ensure that they are properly recognized.

Configuring Classic applications to start up automatically

Like Mac OS X’s Startup Items (Startup Items is a panel in the Accounts preference pane of the System Preferences application, see Chapter 2 for more info), Classic allows you to specify applications and documents you want to open automatically when Classic starts up or shuts down.

You place the items (in general, it’s better to place aliases to the items) into the System Folder’s Startup Items and Shutdown Items folders. By placing aliases into the folders, you don’t have to worry about navigating into or out of your System Folder hierarchy for changed documents or applications, nor do you have to place support files that need to be located with their applications in the folder with the application items.

Now, each time you start Classic, the applications and documents in your Startup Items folder open. Similarly, each time you quit Classic, the items in your Shutdown Items folder open. Be careful with Shutdown Items. If you set an application that requires user input as a Shutdown Item and you are not around to baby-sit the process, the shutdown of your computer or the shutdown of the Classic application environment will probably “time out” (or fail to complete).

You can use the Extensions Manager, as discussed earlier in this Chapter, to toggle these Startup Items on and off.