Hidden folders can't be accessed thru finder

Question

Hi;
An application created some folders that only appear in that application when I am browsing for a place to put a file. It shows that they are inside of "23travis' iBook G4" in the finder window. When I do a hidden file search, (Visible/Invisible) they don't come up. They are using a bunch of space, and I really need to get rid of them. Can someone help?

Answer 1

The Find system is broken in Tiger: it will not find invisible files even when that option is selected. If you have the Developer Tools installed, the easiest way is to change Finder AppleShowAllFiles setting from 0 to 1 in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder using Property List Editor, then relaunch Finder.
Alternatively you can create a simple script that will toggle AppleShowAllFiles:
on run
set hiddenState to (do shell script "/usr/bin/defaults read com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles")
try
if hiddenState = "0" or hiddenState contains "does not exist" then
tell application "Finder" to set showPrompt to display alert "Are you sure you want to show all invisible files?" message "The Finder will quit and relaunch afterwards." buttons {"Cancel", "Show Invisible Files"} default button "Show Invisible Files"
if button returned of showPrompt = "Show Invisible Files" then
tell application "Finder" to quit
do shell script "/usr/bin/defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles 1"
delay 0.1
else if button returned of showPrompt = "Cancel" then
return 0
end if
else if hiddenState = "1" then
tell application "Finder" to set showPrompt to display alert "Are you sure you want to hide all invisible files?" message "The Finder will quit and relaunch afterwards." buttons {"Cancel", "Hide Invisible Files"} default button "Hide Invisible Files"
if button returned of showPrompt = "Hide Invisible Files" then
tell application "Finder" to quit
do shell script "/usr/bin/defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles 0"
delay 0.1
else if button returned of showPrompt = "Cancel" then
return 0
end if
end if
on error theError
FinderCheck()
display alert theError as critical message "Changes may or may not have been made."
end try
FinderCheck()
end run
on FinderCheck()
tell application "System Events"
if (name of every process) does not contain "Finder" then
tell application "Finder" to launch
end if
end tell
end FinderCheck
Save this as a script with AppleScript Editor, and for convenience you can put it in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Finder. You can then run the script easily from the script menu in Finder.