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It's Nice to See ThingsIntroducing Undercover.
It's nice to see things. Even with the ACP there are certain things that won't be visible in Apple's OS X shell. And for ordinary punters the issues multiply rapidly.
Unix has only one way of hiding a file - and it's not really a matter of hiding it anyway. It's just that the file won't often be listed. This method is of course putting a dot ('.') in front of the file name.
But OS X has two ways of really hiding files - and they're not so easy to deal with.
- .hidden. A file containing names of files to be hidden.
- kIsInvisible. An archaic HFS flag still recognised by the OS X shell.
Perhaps the most infamous example of something on OS X being hidden against user wishes is the iPod_Control directory on the iPod hard drive - it's kept hidden to make it more difficult for you to copy your song collection back to your hard drive.
Use 'File - Open' from the menu, drop a directory on Undercover's dock icon, or drop a directory on an Undercover window. Undercover will perform a 'shallow' search (only one hierarchical level). Files normally visible are listed on the right ('uncovered'); files hidden are listed on the left ('covered').
You can move items either from the 'covered' pane or the 'uncovered' pane.
- Select the items you wish to uncover in the left pane and choose Uncover from the menu (⌘→). Undercover will uncover them and review your directory again.
- Alternately, select the items you wish to cover in the right pane and choose Cover from the menu (⌘←). Undercover will cover them and review your directory again.
Freeing Your Pod
- Mount your pod as always.
- Navigate to it in your Finder.
- Drop its directory on Undercover.
- Select iPod_Control and hit ⌘→.
See how nice it is to see things.
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