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Hidden folders in OS X file dialogs

Posted by: Brian Pontarelli on 07/01/2008

Found a good shortcut for getting access to hidden folders in OS X file dialogs and the Finder. It requires some typing and it doesn’t auto-complete like Linux does, but it is better than nothing. Just hit Shift-Command-G to open the “Go To Folder” dialog and then type the path to the hidden file or folder. The path can be relative.

Now, just need to figure out how to access hidden files from the Finder and file dialogs.

[Edit 08/09/2008] The issue is that using the AppleShowAllFiles configuration doesn’t work in dialog boxes and if you enable it, opening Finder in your home directory gets REALLY messy. What Apple needs is the same feature that Linux has had for a long time: the ability to show and hide hidden files in dialogs and finder using a keyboard shortcut or menu option. I believe Linux uses ctrl-h for this. Apple could use something like cmd-shift-h or something.

Brian Pontarelli's complete blog can be found at: http://brian.pontarelli.com

About Brian Pontarelli

Brian Pontarelli is the founder and president of Inversoft, a Colorado based software company. In addition to Inversoft, Brian works on many open source projects including Struts, Savant and Java.net commons. In the past, he was the president of the Chicago Java User Group and an enterprise architect for Orbitz.

Brian has been programming for many years and works primarily with Java and Ruby. He has published various articles in both print and online magazines about Java, J2EE security, Java Server Faces and NIO.

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