04-12-2012, 10:18 AM

For some reason I got a facebook icon on my desktop. I would like to gert rid of it. draging it to the Trash can does not work.
Any suggestions?
John

04-12-2012, 10:40 AM

What happens if you try to move it to the Trash? Can you provide a screenshot (Shift - Command - 4)?

04-12-2012, 01:15 PM

Try Command-drag?

04-12-2012, 01:37 PM

Normally, when I drag a desktop icon down into the thrash can it will erse the icon.
With the facebook icon I can drag it down as far as it can go, but the Dock images at the bottom do not come up, therefore I can not reach the Thrashcan.
Does this describe my problem well enough? Do yo still need a snapshot of the icon? It is just a plain ,very translucent "f"

04-12-2012, 02:14 PM

Open your user folder (home) and then open the Desktop folder. What's in there? Can you drag IT to the trash?

Edit: by IT I don't mean Desktop but the "facebook" icon.

04-12-2012, 07:39 PM

The Desktop Folder does not show the offending Icon, but it is on the Dektop shown as a translucent "f"

04-12-2012, 08:35 PM

As I can see, in the folder you can't see the Facebook icon, right?

04-12-2012, 09:41 PM

No, the "f" icon is not shown in the Desktop folder.
Double clicking on the Icon opens a rectangular window with the heading "Post" ,and below an empty field to write in, and at the bottom two buttons labeled "My Profile" and one labeled"Post".

04-12-2012, 11:57 PM

Is it possible that the "offending icon" is in fact part of the desktop pattern you are using? I notice it matches it perfectly ...

04-13-2012, 02:14 AM

Originally Posted by chas_m

Is it possible that the "offending icon" is in fact part of the desktop pattern you are using? I notice it matches it perfectly ...

What do you mean by this? The Icon "f" can be moved moved arond to any location on the desktop.

04-13-2012, 02:28 AM

What happens if you right click on that F icon? If you don't have a 2 button mouse, go control+click. Do you see Get Info? If so click on that and let us know what you see. Just a guess.

04-13-2012, 03:28 AM

Okay, it's not part of the desktop background, so my next suggestion is to restart the Mac.

04-13-2012, 04:25 AM

I've never done this so I don't know; would a Dashboard widget which was left on the desktop in developer mode not show in the folder?

04-13-2012, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by dtravis7

What happens if you right click on that F icon? If you don't have a 2 button mouse, go control+click. Do you see Get Info? If so click on that and let us know what you see. Just a guess.

I am a newbe with iMac and therefore I take all the responses to my query serious and I am grateful for the various suggestions. I will try to give answers to each response on the subject.
Control+Click does not do anything. However a double click will open a window.This is an indication that the Icon in question is legitimate and was deliberately placed on the desktop. My problem is that I just cannot remove it. Facebook might be good for a lot of people, but does nothing useful for me other than annoy me with a multitude of silly conversations with very little intelligent content.
But lets examine the functionality of this app. It permits to create messages to two different destinations. When pressing the "profile" button a list of my facebook 'friends' shows up which would allow me to send a message to the Wall of a selected friend. If pressing the "post" button instead will send the messig onto my own Wall.
So, there is nothing wrong with the intended funcionality. Facebook has a very agressive way to extend its user base. I don't like this agressivenes when it affect the working of my computer. I should be able to remove the app like any other app. But unfortunately it does not and I am trying to find out why not.
John

04-13-2012, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by chas_m

Okay, it's not part of the desktop background, so my next suggestion is to restart the Mac.

This is an interesting experience.The restart option brings up a window to ask me if I really want to restart and if I want to reopen windows when looged in. The checkmark for this is preset. Not having known the implications of this I let the checkmark stand. After OK the computer restarted by first displying some mysterious messages on the left lower screen part, relating to scroll area and secure password entry, I managed to get the computer up and displaying a lot of apps on the screen.that somehow I used in the past, but was not expecting them to be opened at this time because I thought that all these apps would have been properly closed at the end of my usage. So,I closed them all again and now the obnoxious "f" app was no longer on my desktop. SUCCSESS !!
Not exactly an intuative approach to get rid of an unwanted app.
I also learned from this experiment to have the ckeck mark for opening windows removed, when next time I want to restart the Computer.