Junk on desktop

[ebony]

I just installed firefox and I'm left with what looks like an external disc drive with the firefox symbol on it littering my desktop.

If i drag and drop ino the bin the application gets deleted.... not ideal.

How do I get rid of this, what is it, and how do I stop it appearing next time I install stuff ?

( I have ordered a good book so hopefully won't be asking such basic questions in the near future )

Thanks.

[Jowl]

That's just the disk image that Contains Firefox. (a lot of/most mac download apps are in this format)

If you drag either the entire disk image, or just it's firefox contents into your application folder, that will move Firefox to there.

Then just throw away the disk image on the desktop.

[ebony]

I've dragged it into the applications folder, I can see its there.

I then try and drag the one thats on the desktop into the bin, but the bin turns into the eject symbol ?

I then opened the firefox folder up that was on the desktop and dragged this to the applications, it then allowed me to delete the one that was on the desktop, thanks.

I must be really thick, cos I've never struggled so much in all my life since getting a mac.

[Jowl]

Yes, that's right.

Drag it to the Trash and it should 'eject' the disk.

As long as you have copied it to your applcations folder rather than just created an alias (shortcut) then you should be fine

[rude-dog]

the eject symbol is a virtual eject for the firefox diskimage you have. just drag the disk image on the to the eject symbol to get rid of it.

this will vitually eject the diskimage, then just delete the original install file, simply drag it in to the bin!

firefox is a cracking app, but most mac users i know stick with safari, after all firefox is just a copy of it!

[Jowl]

Edit: Glad it worked.

A lot with Mac is drag and drop.

If you live near a Apple Store, you can also ask for help in there (or just practice on their machines!!)

[Jowl]

I've never really got into Safari. I use firefox because its cross platform and I use Mac and Windows machines

[SeedyR]

Originally Posted by Jowl

I've never really got into Safari. I use firefox because its cross platform and I use Mac and Windows machines

I use firefox too. However on my girlfriend's mac it flags up spelling mistakes, however it doesn't on mine, even though the box is checked in preferences. Any ideas?

[Monopot]

Originally Posted by Craigy Boy

I use firefox too. However on my girlfriend's mac it flags up spelling mistakes, however it doesn't on mine, even though the box is checked in preferences. Any ideas?

Have you got the latest version and have the British English Dictionary installed?

[ahin4114]

Mac applications are distributed in .dmg files, think of these as disc images. When you double click on a dmg file it the system behaves like you've inserted a CD (it 'mounts' the image). The image will appear on the desktop as a drive image, and like a cd drive you can eject ('unmount') the image.

When you double click on the mounted image it will open a finder window showing the contents of the image (some developers customise these with graphics and instructions etc.)

In order to install the application you have to do one of two things. If the window contains a pkg file, simply run the file and the installer will start. With most applications however you simply drag the icon into the applications folder and the app will install there.

Once this is finished, you can close the finder window and unmount the drive.

If you want to, you can then delete the dmg file, personally I keep them in case I need to re-install later.

Hope that makes sense

[SeedyR]

Originally Posted by Monopot

Have you got the latest version and have the British English Dictionary installed?

Right I downloaded it, said it wouldn't work with the latest version of Firefox, which I only got yesterday, so I thought typical. Then looked in comments, and also said it wasn't compatible with the most up-to-date version of Tiger. However I restarted my Mac, and now I have the dictionary working for some reason! Cheers.

Originally Posted by Craigy Boy

Right I downloaded it, said it wouldn't work with the latest version of Firefox, which I only got yesterday, so I thought typical. Then looked in comments, and also said it wasn't compatible with the most up-to-date version of Tiger. However I restarted my Mac, and now I have the dictionary working for some reason! Cheers.

FWIW I find FF to be a CPU hog on both XP and OS X. It's not too bad on the Dell at work, but just about unusable on my PBook G4 at home. I prefer Camino, which is much more Mac-like, and doesn't have this problem. I think that FF has just got too bloated.
http://www.caminobrowser.org/

[ebony]

Originally Posted by ahin4114

Mac applications are distributed in .dmg files, think of these as disc images. When you double click on a dmg file it the system behaves like you've inserted a CD (it 'mounts' the image). The image will appear on the desktop as a drive image, and like a cd drive you can eject ('unmount') the image.

When you double click on the mounted image it will open a finder window showing the contents of the image (some developers customise these with graphics and instructions etc.)

In order to install the application you have to do one of two things. If the window contains a pkg file, simply run the file and the installer will start. With most applications however you simply drag the icon into the applications folder and the app will install there.

Once this is finished, you can close the finder window and unmount the drive.

If you want to, you can then delete the dmg file, personally I keep them in case I need to re-install later.

Hope that makes sense

Thanks, I'm slowly starting to understand.