Comments on: Hidden folders in OS X file dialogs

By: Brian Pontarelli

Brian Pontarelli — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:49:59 +0000

Makes the OS somewhat less powerful than Windows and Linux, but not a show stopper. Most of the hidden files are text and I can VIM them if necessary. And if I really need to get to them in an application, I can just use ‘open’.

Hopefully Apple is open to suggestions. If I can find a way to contact them about a few or these types of things, I definitely will. Otherwise, we just have to hope that the Apple developers will stumble on the same problems and fix them.

By: James Humphrey

James Humphrey — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:52:09 +0000

I don’t mind the ‘mess’ AppleShowAllFiles causes ;), although, you’re right, I never noticed that you can’t access hiddens on File Dialogues. I don’t think Apple will ever add, though. It’s not keeping in tradition with their uber simple LAF. Although, I guess they could add something like, ‘AppleShowHiddenIcon’ or something similar….well, I’ll not hold my breath.

By: Brian Pontarelli

Brian Pontarelli — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:38:58 +0000

After re-reading, my post was slightly ambiguous and I’ve updated it. Both TinkerTool and the AppleShowAllFiles don’t work for file dialog boxes and are a complete mess for the home directory. What Apple needs is a short cut key to show and hide hidden files in finder and dialogs.

By: James Humphrey

James Humphrey — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:35:40 +0000

Or, you can just enable hidden files permanently:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

By: Doug Barth

Doug Barth — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:10:18 +0000

Actually, the go to path dialog does autocomplete. Just press Tab. Unfortunately, it’s a bit annoying in that it picks the first choice on ambiguous tabs.

Also, you can enable showing of hidden files by using TinkerTool to enable the hidden preference. http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html