[comp.sys.atari.st] more on DESKTOP.INF

WALDI@DHDIHEP1.BITNET (05/18/87)

here is some additional info on DESKTOP.INF (a good introduction
on that is in Digest 87-#54 by several authors; I will *not* repeat
what has been already written there!):

. you can have more than one trash can on the desktop. This can be done
  by repeating the #T line with a different location. It is useful with
  many windows, e.g. when using a hard disk, to provide short ways
  to the trash. If you ever "dropped" file icons on a long way, you may
  appreciate this feature.

. the entries created by the system for drives C: and following (hard
  disk) show up like the following:

#M 00 02 00 FF C HARDDISK@ ...@

  the difference to Floppies is the 3 extra characters I denoted with ...
  between the @ @. These are in hex: 601E01 (looks like a fraction of a
  program, BRANCH-instruction?). Once I deleted these characters, I ran
  into trouble with subdirectories on my hard disk. It looked like
  40-folder-bug symptoms, but with the 601E01-stuff in it disappeared.
  I could not really figure out what it is good for, so can anyone
  shed light on this? Anyhow, unless we know more, you should be sure
  to leave this intact when manipulating the DESKTOP.INF file.

. Finally, important to anyone who manipulates the DESKTOP.INF file using
  an editor: There is an EOF character (hex 1A, the inverse-e in the ST
  character set) at the end of the file, which is not written by any
  editor I know of! If it is no longer there, the system will read to the
  end
  of the last sector, which may cause lots of trouble, when there is
  accidentally something GEM can interpret. To avoid it, place the $1A
  after the last CR-LF with a disk sector editor, or use your normal
  editor
  with this character in the last line (if your editor allows to enter
  this thing). In this case, a CR-LF will follow the $1A, but this seems
  not to disturb the Atari. If you want to discard the CR-LF after the
  EOF just SAVE DESKTOP after the next boot.
  GEM will write only to (incl.) the $1A.

Roland Waldi