How do I make .htaccess show up in Jaguar's Finder?

February 3, 2004 6:49 AM

Mac question: How do I get my .htaccess files to show up in OS X Finder? (I use OS X 10.2.8, will be upgrading to Panther before summer.)
posted by brownpau to computers & internet (9 comments total)

The FTP server probably blocks files that begin with a period. This behavior is by design and there isn't much you can do about it on your end AFAIK.

The solution is to telnet or ssh in to the machine. Then you'll be able to see everything.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:55 AM on February 3, 2004

Do you need to edit it?

BBEdit lite will open "hidden" files for editing (files that begin with a dot), but for some reason wont allow you to save a new file as a dot file. My workaround is to save it as a non-dot file initially, then rename it by the command line. Then you can "open hidden" in BBEdit Lite and save just fine...
posted by jpburns at 7:01 AM on February 3, 2004

What y6cubed said. Just last night I had this come up. Had to use Terminal to telnet in and pico my .htaccess file.
posted by terrapin at 7:03 AM on February 3, 2004

Crap. Sorry. I did some more poking around. You have set filters by site to view the hidden files.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:05 AM on February 3, 2004

Just to clarify, I'm talking about local .htaccess, not remote. I have no problems dealing with .htaccess on my web host, but within my local development environment, I'd like to be able to see my .htaccess in my Finder windows, a double-click away from editing.

At this time, I use SubEthaEdit and jEdit, and neither has presented a problem with saving and opening .htaccess. When I do run into .filename problems, I use jpburns's workaround above.
posted by brownpau at 7:15 AM on February 3, 2004

I'm fairly certain TinkerTool will do what you need.
posted by ook at 7:54 AM on February 3, 2004

(after a quick download and install) Yep, it does. (It's unfortunately all or nothing, though, so you'll be trading the convenience of clickable .htaccess files for the inconvenience of visible .DS_Store files.)
posted by ook at 8:05 AM on February 3, 2004

Just another idea - I used a stuation similar as an opportunity to learn how to use the "ln" command to make a symbolic link (sort of like an alias, only maintained by UNIX not by the Aqua part of Mac OS X)... Symbolic links show up as visible Finder items regardless of the visibility of the item to which they point (thereby bypassing the downside ook notes of making all those damned .DS_Store files visible...)
posted by JollyWanker at 8:27 AM on February 3, 2004

Tinkertool looks excellent! Thanks, ook.
posted by brownpau at 7:40 PM on February 3, 2004