Desk Top Folder Weirdness

Question

Hello
Well, something very weird is happing on my desktop. Whenever I make a new desktop folder, everything on my desktop appears inside it, along with what I originally put in it. For example, let's say I create a new folder on my desk top and I call it "Test Folder". Everything on my desktop shows up inside this "Test Folder" without my putting it in. It does it all by itself! It's driving me nuts! So, as a result, all my desktop folders contain the same exact thing, that is, everything on my desk top. Yikes!
Could someone explain what is happening, and how to solve this issue?
Thank you so much.
Best,
Anneita

Answer 1

I think that you are revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of the interface. My guess is that, when you double-click a folder on the desktop, you are getting a window in column view. (Is the item "as Columns" in the View menu checked?). In column view, you have multiple columns.
Let's say you have a folder on the desktop called "Test", and you double-click it. The rightmost column in the window that opens shows the contents of the "Test" folder. The column to its left shows the contents of the folder that contains "Test" (ie, the desktop). The next column to the left shows the contents of the folder containing the desktop folder (ie, your home folder). In each column, the folder whose contents are displayed in the next column to the right should have a gray background to show that it is selected. Similarly, if you were to click a folder inside "Test", you would get another column added to the right, showing the contents of that folder.