Filed under: Widget Watch
Widget Watch: hiddenfiles
Ever wonder what files your Mac is hiding from you? Maybe not, but once in a while there's a need to peek at the stuff OS X keeps you from viewing. Finder does a nice job of hiding the "guts" of some folders, you see, but there are occasions (troubleshooting, setting up a web server, looking for some folders, etc.) when you'll need to view and/or edit these files or folders. Enter hiddenfiles, a simple and unobtrusive widget that'll show those hidden files and folders.Sure, you can use Onyx or Terminal and do some command line work. But it's much easier to drop into Dashboard, hit "Show" on the blue button and have Finder relaunch, showing all invisible files. I had to click on Finder in the Dock to actually launch it again, but when I did there were those lovely .DS_Store files, staring me down. I use this to remove the hidden _files off my daughter's PC-friendly MP3 player. That way she doesn't have to scroll through resource-fork versions of her songs.
The widget is free and available from developer Matthew Hansen's page.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Johnny said 4:31PM on 4-03-2009
It is easier if you do it a lot. BTW.. I had an idea. What if you could use a special character before a terminal command to trigger it in the spotlight menu bar item? That would be cool.
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Cronick said 4:51PM on 4-03-2009
Compile this as an Applescript applet. You shouldn't need to restart the Finder. Oh, and no extraneous process running in the background all the time.
----
set CurrentSet to do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles"
if CurrentSet is "False" then
try
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True"
end try
else
try
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles False"
end try
end if
tell application "Finder" to quit
delay 2
tell application "System Events"
repeat until (exists application process "Finder")
tell application "Finder" to activate
end repeat
end tell
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Cronick said 8:15PM on 4-04-2009
Oh, and you should call that little number: "Show_Hide Invisible Files"
buenoben0 said 7:52AM on 4-04-2009
I used Hidden Cleaner (freeware) when I was using a non Apple mp3 player, it deletes all the hidden files before ejecting any removable media of choice:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/34318
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MIchael said 9:08PM on 4-06-2009
This is a cool, non-technical way to peer at the invisible files that Apple and 3rd party developers hide from us, usually with good reason, however this widget is not very useful for doing too much more than just that. It disables the Finder, which in turn removes the ability to move within the folder structure which is pretty annoying.
In general, I suppose the purpose of most widgets is for simpler tasks as opposed to full fledged applications.
Hiddenfiles was released back in October. Why is this getting reviewed 6 months later? Not complaining, just more of an observation.
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