Robin Williams Mac OS X Book, Jaguar Edition, The

What is an Alias?

An alias is an “empty” icon that represents the real thing. Aliases are espcially useful for applications. You see, most applications must stay in the folder they were installed into because when the application opens, it calls upon resources within its folder. If you store the application icon itself (without all of its resource files) in a different folder or on your Desktop, you run the risk that the application won’t be able to function properly. That’s where the alias comes in: You make an alias, which represents the application, and you can put that alias anywhere. In fact, you can make a dozen aliases of the same application and store them in all sorts of handy places. When you double-click an application alias, it goes ...