Idea #2938: Able to hide files and dirs without the dot.

-41

Written by Holmen the 4 Mar 08 at 00:23. Category: Accessibility.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

I wish to be able to hide directorys and files without actually adding the dot (.) in front of their filenames.

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Auzy wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 00:29

I like this idea, but its going to be hard to get this one snuck through. I'd personally like to phase out the .'s, because it confuses users when their files disappear when they change the filename with a dot in front accidentally.

You'd have to use extended attributes or something though to fix. Which not all filesystems. But worth investigating.

Definately +1. We should have no restrictions on file naming

travist120 wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 00:34

I don't think this is feasable. The . in front of file names to hide them is used on ALL unix systems, including mac, which is unix based. Though I think that adding a gui right click option to hide folders (which in sense would automate the task of adding a . in front of folders) would be better

Auzy wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 00:39

You cant though automatically add a . in front.. People will want to hide /etc for instance.

Auzy wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 00:40

I should add thats why Extended attributes work....

peterjs wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 01:00

That's how things are done on Unix systems. Don't like? you can:
1) get used to it and learn to like it
2) Not use Unix based OSes.
3) Come up with a sound technical reason this needs to happen

There's a lot of value in the open methodology, but I'm starting to think brainstorm needs a required history of Unix course before letting people post. A lot of the request would be filtered out once people understood the reason things are done the way the are now. Unix was designed by some very smart folks.

davidbentolila wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 12:45

you could do it!!!

create a file named .hidden in folder that you want to hidden folders and files

and put in this file the files' and folders' names that you want to hidden!

Holmen wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 18:54

peterjs, you are to extreme. I KNOW that all POSIX systems uses this kind of technical bit to hide files ans folders. But I want to be able to use both. I like it to be able to hide just by adding a dot, but if I want to hide som system folder like /etc, like Auzy said, I cant hide it by using det dot because then the system wont find it.

And secondly if Ubuntu now is goin to be the biggest competitor against Microsoft and Windows, they will have to change something for the end-user and using two ways to hide file isnt that dangerous.

Couldn't use some kind of meta tag that Nautilus reads? If a file och dir says "hide", Nautilus hides it.

rumli wrote on the 19 Mar 08 at 18:32

We can't expect new users to know about the ".hidden" file. It would be nice to integrate this functionality into Nautilus via a simple right-click option. Remember, the goal is a friendly desktop experience.

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