Can't rename htaccess.txt in OS X

[dweeda]

I am a newbie installing for the first time.  

I am on a Mac and get  /.htaccess doesn't exist. Before continuing, you should rename the included htaccess.txt file to be .htaccess (with the period in front of it, and no '.txt' at the end)., but I cannot start a filename in OS X with a period - at least that is what the OS tells me in a message.  What do I do?  Is there some trick or workaround I can use?  I can't be the only one to have faced this problem.

Thanks all!

David

[adrian]

By default Mac doesn't let you view "hidden" files which start with a period.

You can change this setting in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool YES
killall Finder

Then Finder should let you rename.

Otherwise you can just rename directly in the terminal:

cd /pathto_htaccess.txt/
mv htaccess.txt .htaccess

Of course you could do it from anywhere without cd 'ing into the directory, but thought this might be easier to understand as I am not sure your experience level with terminal commands.

[blynx]

Hah. Someone was faster.

Tip for the terminal: To get to that directory you can enter "cd " (cd with a space) and then drag the folder where the htaccess.txt is located into the terminal window. Hit enter. Then the terminal switched to that directory.
Then you can use the "mv" command adrian posted above.

[dweeda]

Awesome.  Thank you both for you quick replies.  I knew there must be a way!  - D

[szabesz]

4 hours ago, dweeda said:

I knew there must be a way!  - D

Welcome to the forum

Another option (among others): http://trolsoft.ru/en/soft/trolcommander

Free, and you can turn invisible stuff on/off.

Or a Finder "extension": https://www.trankynam.com/xtrafinder/

Note that XtraFinder is a bit buggy (and/or Apple's Finder is buggy, so it is impossible to add these features properly by 3rd parties, which is quite possible... Finder has always been buggy too) Also, you need to disable System Integrity to make it work on 10.11 and above:  https://www.trankynam.com/xtrafinder/sip.html

I've been using XtraFinder for a long time, it is a great timesaver.

[adrian]

To follow on from @szabesz - you should also consider Forklift: http://www.binarynights.com/Forklift/ - dual pane file manager, ftp and much more!

[Martijn Geerts]

Awesome tips that solves your dot filename issues,  I want to throw in an other approach so you won't have that issue that often. When you change the user that runs apache, the ProcessWire install wil handle the renaming of the htaccess among other things. I only recommend this when you are the only user on your mac that uses the internal apache.

Changing the user is quite simple:

Go to /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, find the block that looks like the block below, and change the user and the group to your short username and the group. In the example I already did that with my name.

After changing that name, restart apache and apache will run with You as user. this will solve a lot of user right issues.

 

<IfModule unixd_module>
#
# If you wish httpd to run as a different user or group, you must run
# httpd as root initially and it will switch.
#
# User/Group: The name (or #number) of the user/group to run httpd as.
# It is usually good practice to create a dedicated user and group for
# running httpd, as with most system services.
#
# User _www
# Group _www

User martijn
Group staff

</IfModule>

 

[adrian]

I completely agree with @Martijn Geerts - that's a much better approach, but I also think that as a developer it is important to be able to see hidden files, so I would still go with the terminal command to make these visible.

[Christophe]

You can also try https://filezilla-project.org/ or http://www.freefilesync.org/, for example.

[flydev]

also, consider buying PathFinder on your mac, you will have full control over your file system and will save you a lot of time. I am on a mac since september, and didnt opened the Finder since I tried this program.