Hide files/icons on the desktop but not in finder

Not sure if something like this exists in OSX. I would like to display a cheatsheet on my desktop as a wallpaper and to make it visible at all times I would like to hide all the icons/files/folders scattered on my desktop as I'm accessing them only from within the Finder anyway. So my question is if it is possible to hide everything on the desktop and show the wallpaper only but use the Desktop folder as normal and see all the files and folders when in Finder view? Using OSX Mountain Lion.


In the terminal, do this:

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false && killall Finder

After this, there'll be nothing on your Desktop (but still in ~/Desktop, i.e. your Desktop Folder). It'll look like this:

Clean Desktop


Beautiful, isn't it? If you want to change it back:

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true && killall Finder

enter image description here


There's another little free program that does exactly this, and nothing more:

http://blog.websecurify.com/2013/01/hide-desktop-icons-on-mac-os-x.html

It sits in the menu bar and lets you toggle icons on or off.