Re: Control hidden folder/file settings?

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:08:45 GMT, mayayana staggered into the Black Sun
and said:

[ Sorry, other stuff kept piling up. Hope this isn't too late. And
your newsreader isn't quoting properly; fixed that, please look at its
settings and fix it. ]

>> They're *not* "marked hidden". In Unix, there's no "hidden" file
>> attribute. All Unix-ish file-handling programs treat files that
>> begin with a . specially, and usually hide those files from users in
> I understand. That was just a figure of speech.

Figures of speech can get pretty literal when you're working with these
machines, as you may have found out already!

> I did find the "Show Hidden Files" option, which works fine - as far
> as Konqueror goes. The only difficulty is the file browsing problem.

Hm. As another person said, it might be worth it to create a symlink
(~/Wine-conf -> ~/.wine , or something.) Like "ln -s ~/.wine
~/Wine-conf" from the command line.

>> Didn't you wonder why GTK+ applications had different-looking "open
>> file" dialogs from KDE applications?
> Frankly, I hadn't noticed whether there were different dialogue
> windows. I am new to it, yes, and it's interesting to see where I keep
> making various assumptions that are so basic I don't realize I'm
> making them. The notion of a centralized API is one of those
> assumptions. At this point I don't have a clear idea of how things fit
> together on Linux.

Hm. OK, it's complex, but there are people who'll help you. I'll
give a brief overview; ask questions about anything that grabs your
attention:

Linux GUIs typically run on top of X, which is roughly analogous to
the "display driver" in OS X/Windows. X provides a way for applications
("X clients") to draw pixels on screen and receive mouse/keyboard input.
X does not enforce much of anything in terms of application look+feel.
That's left up to individual apps and the window manager.

X's window manager doesn't really have an analogue in Windows/OS X. The
window manager controls where the windows are on the screen and draws
the frame and decorations for each window. Window managers run from the
insanely lightweight (ratpoison/ion) to the featureful (kwin). You can
even run X without a window manager if you want--that means you can't
move or resize windows! This is done in kiosk apps, where you just want
1 app running.

Instead of a standardized GUI widget set (Win32 / Carbon / Cocoa), apps
can use any widget set they want. GTK+ is really the most common, KDE
the next most, then probably wxWindows, then Tcl/Athena/Lesstif bringing
up the rear. All widget sets look different, but they all behave
basically the same way except for Athena's weird scrollbars. GTK+ and
KDE widgets are themeable; you control them with KDE Control Center or
.... gconf? Something like that. That lets you make the widgets look
pretty, which is amusing and fun for ~30 minutes.

> Maybe I should be asking these questions in a beginner's group, but
> they don't seem to get much traffic.

*shrug* that happens sometimes. Usenet's a big place, and some groups
are more populated than others for no reason.

>>> (The one time that I did try entering the hidden path by hand it was
>>> not recognized.)
>> This is more troubling. Which version of which application were you
>> using, and was it KDE, GTK+, or something else?
> This is interesting. I see what you mean about different file browsing
> GUI layouts. I can't browse for files in a hidden folder in Firefox

This is weird. Firefox 1.0.7 here, the "open file" dialog has a
checkbox called "show hidden files" in the bottom left corner. Checking
it shows all files that begin with a . , which makes things easier.

> the Wine Windows browsing dialogue because they neither show hidden
> files nor provide for text input.

Wine is a special case. Um... hmm, if I do "wine pq.exe" I get
ProgressQuest's normal dialog. Pick "Open File", I get a standard
Win2K-like "open file" dialog. I can put ".wine" into the "file name"
portion of that dialog, and pq.exe shows my ~/.wine directory. Maybe
it's dependent on what you're running with wine?

> In KWrite I can build the path in the text input: If I have "/root/"
> and then add "." it will show a dropdown of all hidden subfolders; but
> the display does not update when I then select a subfolder to build
> the next part of the path, so I can't select a file.

For kwrite, File->Open File. The open file dialog will appear. You
should be able to find the icon that looks like a hammer and wrench in
that open file dialog, click on it, then select "show hidden files".
(Or just hit F8.) Your KDE may not have that feature in exactly the
same place--I'm using KDE 3.4.3 here--but it should be there somewhere.

> called GwenView I have to use the same trick of building the path in
> the text input, but once I enter the path of a hidden folder by hand
> it will, at least, it display the non-hidden content of that folder.

Hm. If it works, go for it.

> So in four different programs there are four entirely different file
> browsing dialogues.

Yep. Ain't choice great? :-) At least we've almost gotten rid of the
(annoying and somewhat hard to use) GTK 1 file open dialog.

--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com / "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/ penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL
.

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