Invisible Files on MAC OS X
A common Problem and how to deal with this. I thought I’d share.
Let’s say, you are packaging up some Folders on your desktop, that you want to distribute occasionaly on your
Blog.
Normally, those should reside in a repository, but that might be overkill in most cases, and what, If you like to moove Files around on your desktop?
For some plugins and Shareware Files, that would be overkill
What happens especially, if you do File Sharing with Windows Platforms, is that your whole Filesystem get’s polluted with invisible Files such as .DS_Sore and others.
Unlike on Windows, MAC OS X doesn’t provide any native Utility, that let’s you view these invisible files in a Finder Window.
There is a Third Party Tool called TinkerTool, that let’s you make them visible.
As a matter of fact the bulk of all those files (that MAC OS X adds up in your Home Folder) plus the invisible ones
can add up, just like it would on a Windows Desktop.( Just run a ls -R command from your home directory in Terminal to see for your self)
Here is how you can package up something easily, without polluting your Visitors with invisible files.
There’s a small third Party Utility called WinFSCCleaner
A better solution though (license required) is this app that handles this problem right from your system prefs: Blueharvest
- Get that in your app Folder and open the application.
- Drag the Folder, you want to package up into the Path input field of WinFSCCleaner.
- Press the cleanse button
- Open a bash Shell in Terminal.app
- Move to the parent directory of your Package Files
- Now we can package up everything using tar.
The syntax is like this:
tar -czf Foldername.tar.gz (/path/to/)Folder
Just replace Foldername with the Name your Archive is supposed to have append the fileextensions .tar.gz and type
a space character, then type the Foldername you want to archive into the Terminal window and press return.
Now you can terminate the shell and dismiss Terminal and upload your archive to your Server, without frustrating
your Site Visitors.
Or get rid of them with Blueharvest.
Posted ·2007-02-20 · by · Marios ·
© 2006-2008 marios buttner
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