how do you make invisible files visible?

Well there are a bunch of ways:

There's an invisible bit that's part of the directory structure. You set it, and the file will be invisible to both OS X and OS 9.

Additionally in OS X you can make a file invisible the UNIX way by starting it's name with a period.


If you have the OS X developer tools installed, jump into the terminal and do this:

SetFile -a V thefilename Make it invisible
SetFile -a v thefilename Make it visible

If you don't, download ResEdit (old classic application) from Apple's developer page, and do a "Get File Info" (I think) from within ResEdit, and click on the invisible checkbox.

Beyond that, there are a bunch of little shareware/freeware apps that will do invisible-bit fiddling for you. One product that comes to mind is Barebones Super Get Info - I think it can do this for you (without the terminal or ResEdit).

- shrill -
 
To show/hide 'dot' files in OS X, type in the Terminal:
Code: 
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles '1'
To hide them again replace '1' with '0'. Unfortunately this isn't selective, SetFile is a much better option for this.
 
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