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See hidden directories' contents with Safari Web Browsers
Whilst trying to undo this hint, I came across an interesting feature in Safari. I wanted to see the contents of the /Volumes directory (which is normally invisible). In particular, I wanted to see the contents of a folder which had spaces in its name. I couldn't figure out how to do this using UNIX in the Terminal, and frankly, was too scared to keep playing there. So I simply opened Safari and typed file:///Volumes/ in Safari's URL area, and pressed Return.

A new Finder window opened containing everything I wanted to see. Nice!

[robg adds: We've run hints on using browsers to view local files before, but as far as I can tell, we haven't run one specifically pointing out the ability to browse hidden files. Of course, it's probably a lot easier to use the Finder's Go: Go to Folder menu item, then enter /Volumes, but if you happen to be in your browser, this will work -- it should work in any browser, perhaps with slight modifications to the URL.]
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See hidden directories' contents with Safari | 9 comments | Create New Account
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Broswer handling of Unix shortcuts
Authored by: juzzyp on Apr 15, '05 01:37:47PM
Thought this was pretty interesting, so tried it to connect to my user Document folder using Camino, Firefox, and Safari.

They all can hit file:///Users/[username]/Documents, with Safari opening a finder window (although the file URL is lost from the navigation line once opened), and Camino and Firefox both giving a browser based (think FTP) navigable folder structure.

The interesting part for me was when I tried using tilde (~) as the current user:

Firefox can;t handle it, Camino correctly interprets it when entered as file://~/Documents/, and Safari won't work as file://~/Documents/, but will work if you drop the "file://" and just type ~/Documents (case insensitive).

Interesting tip, thanks!
Cheers, Juz

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Broswer handling of Unix shortcuts
Authored by: dieter on Apr 15, '05 01:53:35PM

At least Camino can do even simpler than that: just drag a folder icon from the desktop or any finder window into the browser window, and you get a directory listing with clickable links to all files and directories, including the hidden ones.
Oh, and iCab version 3(beta) does that, too.



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See hidden directories' contents with Safari
Authored by: adrianm on Apr 15, '05 01:41:47PM
You don't need to type a full URL in Safari, just type /Volumes in the address bar and it will do the job.

But as Rob says, shift+cmd+G in Finder does the same.

And even in Safari, you can cmd+O, then type /Volumes like you can in any open file dialog box.

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See hidden directories' contents with Safari
Authored by: bjast on Apr 17, '05 12:43:36AM

Somebody shoot me! I had no idea you could type a / in any open dialog box and get the Goto menu ...

And I thought I knew OS X!

However, after checking several other apps, I've found a few anomalies:

Safari: Just type /
TextEdit: Just type /
BBEdit: Shift Command G
MailSmith: Shift Command G
ITunes: Shift Command G

Interesting ...

Thanks for the simple, but useful insight.

bjast



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See hidden directories' contents with Safari
Authored by: PowerMacX on Apr 17, '05 10:14:43PM

"/" works only in Cocoa apps.
"shif+cmd+G" works in both Carbon & Cocoa.



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See hidden directories' contents with Safari
Authored by: allanmarcus on Apr 15, '05 02:23:12PM

In the terminal, enter: cd /Volumes
that's it!

Also, in the Finder, select Go to Folder from the Go menu and enter: /Volumes

Then you can see the files in the finder



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open /Volumes
Authored by: pkretek on Apr 15, '05 10:49:42PM
I do not know why, but I prefer to use open /Volumes in the Terminal instead of Finder or Safari.

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See hidden directories' contents with Safari
Authored by: tfdruid on Apr 15, '05 08:01:42PM

>> In particular, I wanted to see the contents of a folder which had spaces in its name. I couldn't figure out how to do this using UNIX in the Terminal, and frankly, was too scared to keep playing there.

To enter file or directory names, simply precede every space with the \ character, for example

cd This\ Directory\ Name\ Has\ Spaces\ In\ It

or quote the whole name, eg

cd "This Directory Name Has Spaces In It"

or enter the first few characters, then hit the <tab> and let bash autocomplete the name for you, eg

cd Thi<tab>



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See hidden directories' contents with Safari
Authored by: brew on Apr 19, '05 12:43:41PM

Or, you can just use tab completion - which basically does the work for you. Just type the first few letters of the directory name and whack the tab key - the shell will complete it, and escape the spaces.

You can also use the open command to view files in hidden directories in the finder. For example:

open ~/.ssh



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