auto-arrange icons in a folder?

Not quite sussed this one out yet. A typical folder will end up a right mess with icons spread over a much wider area than my viewing window. When I resize a window in Windows XP all the icons automatically rearrange themselves in real time to give the best arrangement to fit the viewing area, yet in OS X this does not happen - or is there a little setting I need to apply somewhere?
If I do Tidy Up files or selection, it just snaps them to a grid but some may still remain spread out, out of view, I just want a quick easy way of keeping the folder viewing the icons optimised.

Finder> View> View Options

You can customise all sorts in there, should be something to get it looking as you want. Keep arranged by... is also there too.

you can also right click on the window, and hit arrange by... this will tidy them up into the viewing area.

Flat Eric said:

If I do Tidy Up files or selection, it just snaps them to a grid but some may still remain spread out, out of view, I just want a quick easy way of keeping the folder viewing the icons optimised.

Click to expand...

Based on your description, I'm assuming you use Icon View.
Arrange by Name or Date ____ (2 choices) and you'll get them all in neat rows and columns, with no gaps. Then if you want a custom arrangement, select None or Snap to Grid, now that you can see them all. Of course, if you get enough items, your screen won't be big enough for all of them to show. You can reduce the icon size to fix that, until you get too many for even the smallest icons.