Working with .htaccess and (Hidden) Dot Files on a Mac

December 21, 2006 at 11:30 am · Filed under Mac OS X

Well, I finally found something that I don’t like about my new MacBook Pro and Mac OS X…

Working with .htaccess files is a pain. Not only does Mac OS X hide all dot files, they also never make it to the server when FTP’ing.

The first FTP client I downloaded for my Mac was CyberDuck. It’s free and does a decent job, however .htaccess files never make it to the server when uploading. After some advice from a veteran Mac user, I picked up a copy of Transmit and it solved my problem. FTP’ing dot files with Transmit isn’t a problem and works great.

There is another solution… but it sucks. You can enable hidden file viewing by downloading a program called TinkerTool, however it really clutters the clean Mac experience with a bunch of extra files.

There has to be a way to show .htaccess files by default while hiding other dot files.

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Greg Barton said,

May 17, 2007 @ 11:35 pm

I have a workaround that I use, it may work with your FTP program that I’be never heard of, btw.

Fetch has been around for a decade at least and here’s what I do with Fetch:

Go to your directory, right click on on the .htaccess file, right click and select “Duplicate”. Select the duplicate you just made and select “Rename”. Rename the file “htaccess” (drop the dot). While htaccess still selected hit the “Get” button below, the file appears on your desktop. Rename the file by adding .txt.

I open it with Adobe GoLiveCS2 or any program that saves in Unix format (LF only).

I edit the file, close it, upload it, rename it “.htaccess” on the server with Fetch, DONE.

Mikee said,

June 5, 2007 @ 8:38 pm

hey,

i agree, and could not find anything for the moment. I’m sure you know about these but this is what I found on the topic :

http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/view_hidden_files_and_folders_in_finder

http://www.smartsoft.com/products/dotfiles/dotfiles.html

I’ve gone for the first option for the minute. I’m not unhappy with a whole lot of hidden files being displayed, I know which ones I would like to edit and which ones I do not.

HTH,
Mikee

Mikee said,

June 5, 2007 @ 10:51 pm

Ahhhh…

Amendment to the above. I mean I was unable to find anything to specifically show .htaccess. But was able to find those two topics regarding showing all hidden files and folders.

Cheers,
Mikee

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