Desktop Icon Screenshots
I didn’t know that desktop icons could be captured with the spacebar trick after hitting cmd-shift-4. They’re not only captured, they’re captured with full transparency.
I didn’t know that, either.
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Gah, that's what I was just about to say.
Yikes! That's the kind of thing X-Windows would do.
"My guess is also that this is the explanation for the really poor performance that people see when having gazillions of icons on their desktop."
That would explain it.... yikes. That's kind of scary really. Other folders can do it without a window for each... why not the Desktop?
I remember a hint at Macosxhints.com where this was mentioned. It basically talked about keeping the desktop clear of unneeded icons because each icon was its own little window that consumed some memory.
Of course, this behavior has its benefits, especially for things like Safari downloads where the icon has a download progress indicator.
That's probably a straightforward consequence of each icon technically being a window of its own (just look at the window list in QuartzDebug!)
My guess is also that this is the explanation for the really poor performance that people see when having gazillions of icons on their desktop.