topic Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource in Alfresco Archive

Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

varsenault — Mon, 21 May 2007 15:17:19 GMT

Hi,Some of the CIFS clients to our Alfresco repository are Mac OS X and Linux OSes. These machines will sometime create hidden files (starting with a ".", dot character) when creating or modifying content in the CIFS repository. I'm not talking about the Mac OS X ".DS_Store". I'm talking mostly abou

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

mikeh — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:01:05 GMT

Hi,

Unfortunately those resource fork files are necessary for some Mac filetypes. There's way too much information on Wikipedia should you need some bedtime reading.

It is possible to stop the ".DS_Store" files being created, but it sounds like you may already know that. Should you not have come across it, this tip from Apple details how to stop those particular files from spreading onto a network drive. Note that the "fix" applies to the currently logged-on user only.

There is a shareware product you might like to investigate, called BlueHarvest which claims to automatically remove ".DS_Store" and resource fork files from specified network drives. I've never tried the software, so cannot recommend it personally, but if you'd like to trial it and report back here, I'm sure others will find your results useful.

Regards,
Mike

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

nuandaeb — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:59:35 GMT

Has anyone come up with a solution to this?
It looks like there's an open issuehttp://issues.alfresco.com/browse/AWC-1336 on this topic, but no solution seems to have been implemented yet.

I'm placing files in the repository via Alfresco's webdav interface. I don't want the resource files (ie. files preceded with '._') to show up as it's far too confusing for users.

I tried BlueHarvest. It seems to be more reliable in OS X Tiger (10.4.x) than in 10.3.9, but it's still not perfect.
For example, I tried copying a directory into mulitple spaces. The resource files didn't appear 3 out of 4 times, but that's still not 100% of the time.

I originally tried creating a rule that moves these files to a specific space when they come into the repository, but Mac OS X's native webdav client would generate an error when trying to copy files into spaces where this rule was applied. I assume the resource fork files are copied first, and that the webdav client fails as soon as it tries to copy the actual file because it can't find the corresponding resource file (since the rule has already moved it).

My next attempt was to try to create a rule that categorizes any file starting with '.' with a specific category name (e.g. 'Files to Delete'). My plan was to create a scheduled action that would pick these files up periodically (e.g. every few minutes). The problem is that I found that the categorization rule was not being applied consistently. Some of my files were being categorized, while others were not.

I'm working in the community 2.1 and 2.9B versions.

Anyone have any ideas?

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

fernandoe — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:57:40 GMT

Hi All,

Was just wondering if anyone had a response to the issues mentioned earlier in this thread?

The files preceded by "._" are becoming quite cumbersome.

Any an all help would be greatly appreciated!

Fernando

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

sylvain78 — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:10:12 GMT

These files are generally "hidden", so I think that alfresco should treat them as such.

What about a Hidden aspect? - Now that I think of it, I'm suprised it doesn't already exist!

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

mikeh — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:54:57 GMT

It's not really Alfresco's position to hide them, as they might mean different things to different operating systems. And as you can access Alfresco form Windows, *nix, Mac, etc. there's no common rule for them all.

If they really bother you, it shouldn't be too hard to write a rule to delete them on creation and/or a script to search and destroy existing ones.

Mike

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

rays — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:36:16 GMT

If they really bother you, it shouldn't be too hard to write a rule to delete them on creation and/or a script to search and destroy existing ones.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I agree. It shouldn't be too hard to write a rule….

In fact, I and my colleagues have been able to write a number of rules which, only when run manually, do the needful.

What we cannot seem to write is a single version of a rule which successfully acts across the repository, deleting all these pesky files when they are uploaded using WebDav, even if the very same rule is applied manually on the same space thereafter and works!

So, why doesn't the same condition/action rule work automatically on Upload or Update?

All contributions will be gratefully received and trialed.

Ray Saunders

PS: In response to earlier comment, BlueHarvest does do the job in our trials when configured correctly on the user's Mac OS X (only 10.4.+, 10.5.+ tested).

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

iantopanto — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:20:58 GMT

can we somehow create a rule that checks whether the filename begins with ._ ?

I have gone through the process of trying to create a rule to do this but from the options currently available I dont think its possible.

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

bobhall — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:14:16 GMT

It's not really Alfresco's position to hide them, as they might mean different things to different operating systems. And as you can access Alfresco form Windows, *nix, Mac, etc. there's no common rule for them all.

If they really bother you, it shouldn't be too hard to write a rule to delete them on creation and/or a script to search and destroy existing ones.

Mike

Where this is the biggest problem is in the Web page listing of documents. No one is interested in viewing these files from within the Alfresco application. Mac OS X generates the files and makes them invisible to their users within OS X. Alfresco should filter them out of file lists when viewed from within Alfresco.

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

jager13579 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:46:13 GMT

Has anyone been able to successfully filter "._" files out of searches yet or find them through rules? Could someone please provide an example? I know someone said they had some rules to get some files out but I haven't been successful at all. Deleting them manaully (without a script or something) is not an option as the file server will be used heavily and there would be no way to manage this.

Specifically, I am using Alfresco Share's Image Summary dashlet. However, all the "._filename.jpg" are showing up first and without thumbs so it looks really bad. I have not been able to get them out of the lucene query.

Thanks for the help.

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

sselvan — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:53:22 GMT

Stumbled upon this one, when searching for something else - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629

Found the above link in http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_on_MacOS_X#Removing_the_.DS_Store_.22duplicate.22_files

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

scsc_tech — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:11:51 GMT

Stumbled upon this one, when searching for something else - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629

Thanks for the contribution, but this is not the type of file that is being discussed in this thread. What its really about is the ._ resource forks that get created in duplicate for every single file, not just folders.
I second that it is Alfrescos responsibility to filter these HIDDEN system files as such.
In argument to them meaning different things to different OS's, generally anything preceded with a . is a hidden file in virtually all operating systems. Alfresco should at least allow for a config file boolean to turn hiding on or off.

new improvement report created http://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-2195

Re: Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

cloudcontrol — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:34:41 GMT

Hi Folks- please create an account in the Alfresco jira bug tracking system and vote for this to be fixed: https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-254