Convoluted title, eh? After many years of intermittently being miffed when I couldn’t just type cd /NameofAlias and have the bash shell transport me into the directory the alias pointed to, I finally decided to do something about it.

First stop: Mac OS X Hints, where I looked at these two hints:
Enable ‘cd’ into directory aliases from the Terminal
A script to reveal alias paths in the Terminal

From the insight gained there, I cobbled together my one-step solution to the problem…
Continue reading ‘Making the Mac OS X bash shell alias and symlink agnostic’

In using Mac OS X over the past two years, I have from time to time wished I could quickly switch my view of files in the Finder from hiding hidden files to showing them, and back again. Often, instead of going the cumbersome route of resetting the visibility settings in SystemPreferences and then restarting the Finder, I have just fired up a Terminal window in the directory and done a ‘ls -al’.

Now, however, thanks to a thread begun by “frogstomp” at <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030409015020645>, I have put together a little AppleScript that does this quickly and easily from within the Finder. You can add to the sweetness by launching the script via a quick keystroke by using a macro program like HotApp or QuickKeys to bind a command key sequence to the script. Enjoy!
Continue reading ‘Toggling File Visibility in the Finder via AppleScript’