Thanks to Bob & Paul for their input & suggestions.
Progress so far:
1) SHOWING/HIDING HIDDEN FILES.
I checked out "Invisibles" but was a bit put off by some of the feedback.
Looked a bit further and found a suggested applescript, which was:
set dotVisible to do shell script "defaults read com.apple.Finder
AppleShowAllFiles"
if dotVisible = "0" then
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles 1"
else
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles 0"
end if
tell application "Finder" to quit
delay 1
tell application "Finder" to activate
With the suggestion to save it as an application.
After Ronni's recent reply regarding applescript, I was quite keen to give
this a try - so I created "Toggle visibility.app" - my first ever
application!
Unfortunately, it didn't initially work for me - I don't remember the
precise error message but it was something like it couldn't find a
com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles pair.
After a bit more searching I found this article:
<http://www.macworld.com/article/51830/2006/07/showallfinder.html>
and tried its simple terminal command of:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
This worked a treat (you have to relaunch finder for it to take effect) and
changing the YES to NO toggles the visibility back off.
And, interestingly, my application now works - I'm presuming that when I
first tried it there was no "AppleShowAllFiles" to read but now (after my
first terminal command wrote it) it can now find it to read and then toggle
it.
So, all very interesting but back to the problem:
2) CHECK OF VISIBLE/HIDDEN FILES
I updated my old G5 iMac to 10.5.4 so I could do a direct comparison of the
two machines both with the same Leopard version and noted:
A) there was one file on the G5 that was not on the INTEL: "mach.sym" -
I'm assuming that this may be a PPC specific system file.
B) other than the two used added folders imported by Migration assistant
there are two items on the INTEL that are not on the G5:
file ".com.apple.timemachine.supported (from old Mac)" and:
folder "Developer"
I'm not concerned with these items - the file is normally invisible and is
obviously (as it says) a record from the previous Mac and the folder is
presumably there because at some stage these developer tools were installed
( I may have been playing - I don't remember!)
C) the following folders/aliases are on both machines but are invisible on
the G5 and visible on the INTEL:
bin, cores, etc, private, sbin, tmp, usr, var, Volumes
THESE are the file I am concerned about why are they visible and how do I
make them invisible!?
D) the following items which I had noted were visible folders on the
external backup are invisible on both machines but, whereas on the external
backup they have standard folder icons, on both machines they have a sort of
custom volume icon (like when you mount a disc image but with a grey case
with a white outline of three men holding hands!): dev, home & net
Same on both machines so OK.
So... No duplicate files - just what I would expect to be there - just that
the files in C) are not invisible like they should be!
Anybody got any further thoughts on this?
TIA
Neil
--
Neil R. Houghton
Albany, Western Australia
Tel: +61 8 9841 6063
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
on 29/7/08 10:59 AM, Robert Howells at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>> There is an App " Invisibles " which can make your
>>> invisible . files .. visible and then make them
>>> Invisible when you require it .
>>>
>>> <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14722>
>>>
>>> You could use that to expose the currently invisible files , but
>>> identify the current files so you know which is what .
>>>
>> Hmmm, thanks Bob, I'll check that out. Maybe it will just let me
>> make the
>> offending files invisible... But is that really what I want to do?
>> Is the
>> visibility the problem or the symptom?!
>
>
> OR Are these visible only because they are some sort of duplicates ?
>
> I rather thought that if you can give them an identity so you know
> which files they are
> when you applied the visible option with that App you would see the
> real files
> plus these files and thus confirm these are only copies , ??? non
> working copies ???
>
> Bob
>
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