HiddenFiles
Latest
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.
Manage secret preferences with Secrets
Here's a clever utility from the creator of Quicksilver. Secrets (no, not the Van Halen song) is a preference pane that lets you fiddle with the hidden defaults of nearly all your applications. For instance, show the iPhoto toobar in full screen mode and make those iTunes arrows link to your library instead of the store. There's a huge database available, and adding your own secret preferences is simple. Have fun![Via Daring Fireball]
Put a stop to pesky hidden files with BlueHarvest
Do you see all sorts of ".ds_store" and "._" files lying around on your external drive when you plug it into a Windows machine? Like this MacOSXHints reader, did you browse your company's network with your Mac, leaving a trail of ._ds_store and .Trash files in your wake? If you're nodding your head right now, I think I've found the solution for you: BlueHarvest, a preference pane that lets you manage and easily clean up these various kinds of Mac OS X-specific hidden files.BlueHarvest allows you to specify where these hidden files are created, offering different drive categories (startup disk, Servers, non-HFS disks, etc.) and allowing you to specify volumes and folders to leave alone. It even has a slick preference tab for drag and drop cleaning of .DS_Store files and resource forks from disks and directories.I've been playing with this for a couple days now and I have to say: it's pretty handy. I have a little flash drive I use for school and a SonyEricsson phone that I can mount on my Mac, both of which I can *finally* say are truly devoid of pesky hidden files. BlueHarvest works on 10.3.9 and 10.4.x, offers a 30 day trial and costs a mere $10 - small price to pay to regain your hidden file sanity.
