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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / December 2007File selection dialogs listing all directories ?
I found the documentation and utilities that made finder windows display all directories (like /etc ). However, I am still stuck with the file selection dialogues restricting access to the non-Unix directories only. For instance, the PLIST editor can't get to the unix directories, nor xcan text edit be used to view some unix scripts etc. Is there a simple solution to this ? (Searched in google but couldn't find aything obvious). > I found the documentation and utilities that made finder windows display > all directories (like /etc ). > > However, I am still stuck with the file selection dialogues restricting > access to the non-Unix directories only. type a forward slash in the open or save dialogue and you'll get a dialogue in which to enter the full path. > For instance, the PLIST editor can't get to the unix directories, nor > xcan text edit be used to view some unix scripts etc. textedit is not really ideal for that. try bbedit or textwrangler. > type a forward slash in the open or save dialogue and you'll get a > dialogue in which to enter the full path. Thanks. This works OK in Textedit, but not in all apps (for instance, for thunderbird, a open saved message will just get me to my home directory if I type / instead of popping up that dialogue.) This still requires you know the first directory. I am susprised there isn't some magic incantation that allows all file selection dialogues to see all directories. Isn't this something which the developper community would have begged for since day 1 of OS-X ? > > type a forward slash in the open or save dialogue and you'll get a > > dialogue in which to enter the full path. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > This still requires you know the first directory. and all the directories in between too. :) it's a full path. > I am susprised there isn't some magic incantation that allows all file > selection dialogues to see all directories. Isn't this something which > the developper community would have begged for since day 1 of OS-X ? what for? what is it you are trying to do? edit plists? most of them are binary now and there is a dedicated property list editor included with the developer tools that makes editing plists much easier and with substantially less chance of screwing them up. also, most people who want to poke around in the the unix directories are likely to be using terminal and vi/emacs or other unix tools. i don't see the advantage of being able to access things like /usr/bin or /etc from microsoft office, for example. there are also some hidden system prefs and changing those is generally done with the defaults write command, or invariably a freeware gui utility appears to tweak them, such as tinker tool. > and all the directories in between too. :) it's a full path. With tiger, once I enter the /etc for instance, I can then get a normal file selection dialogue for everything below /etc, including subdirectories. > edit plists? most of them are binary now and there is a dedicated > property list editor included with the developer tools that makes Guess what the plist editor uses ? File selection dialogues :-) My first use of it involved me copying the .plist file over to an "open" directory so the plist editor could be used on that file and then moving it back. Since there is a hack to make the unix directories visible to finder, I figured there would be a similar hack to open file selection dialogues as well. > also, most people who want to poke around in the the unix directories > are likely to be using terminal and vi/emacs or other unix tools. But its is unfortunate that one has a rich set of gui tools on the MAC side which are not usable to edit/manage the unix side of things. > With tiger, once I enter the /etc for instance, I can then get a normal > file selection dialogue for everything below /etc, including subdirectories. it sounds like it resets it each time, although some apps deliberately start it in certain places. > > edit plists? most of them are binary now and there is a dedicated > > property list editor included with the developer tools that makes [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > directory so the plist editor could be used on that file and then moving > it back. out of curiousity, what were you changing? > But its is unfortunate that one has a rich set of gui tools on the MAC > side which are not usable to edit/manage the unix side of things. there are often gui tools, such as tinkertool, to tweak them. |
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