Toggle Hidden Files workflow

[milan]

A workflow for toggling the visibility of hidden system files (e.g. files with names starting with a dot: .bash_profile) in Finder.

Get it at http://www.packal.org/workflow/toggle-hidden-files.

Report bugs (unlikely to impossible edit: entirely possible but hopefully fixed now) here.

Edited April 9, 2014 by milan

[JasonB5232]

FYI.  Unless you have already created the value, defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true, the workflow will silently fail.

 

error "2014-04-07 11:58:32.059 defaults[7149:d07] 

The domain/default pair of (/Users/jasonbrown/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder, AppleShowAllFiles) does not exist" number 1

Edited April 7, 2014 by JasonB5232

[milan]

Jason, I must thank you very much! I'd never have found this bug...

 

I'm pushing a fixed version to Packal right now. Find it here: http://www.packal.org/workflow/toggle-hidden-files

[shrop]

A friend and I made some improvements:

 

1. Added a hot key - Command + Spacebar + period to show/hide (I like this key combo form Total Finder)

2. Added a command to bring the Finder back to the front after a show/hide operation

 

https://github.com/shrop/alfred2-hidden-files

[milan]

Thank you Mark. I've updated the workflow on Packal.

I've added a small attribution, but Packal doesn't seem to want to update the description (nor the fact that it runs absolutely fine on Yosemite).

[rice.shawn]

The Packal caches just need some time to clear out. The page is cached in whole and in parts, so it takes a little while for all of them to update.

[milan]

That's what I thought was the reason. It updated now.

[Subject22]

I made a similar workflow a while back and managed to bolt together a script filter which lets Alfred tell you if hidden files are currently visible or if they're hidden. This may or may not be useful to you

#!/bin/sh

#check the current value and display the result as subtitle
CURVALUE=$(defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool)

if [ $CURVALUE = 0 ]; then
	subtitle="Hidden files are currently invisible"
else
	subtitle="Hidden files are currently visible"
fi

echo '<?xml version="1.0"?><items>'
echo "<item arg=\"{query}\" uid=\"ssid\" valid=\"yes\">"
echo "<title>Toggle hidden files</title>"
echo "<subtitle>$subtitle</subtitle>"
echo "<icon>icon.png</icon></item></items>"
echo "</items>"

[milan]

Thanks a lot, Subject22! I integrated your script into Hidden Files (and tweaked it a bit).

[Subject22]

No worries! I'll check out your updated version