Scripts Part 2: .DS_Store Remover
Why do so many Mac folk need a GUI for everything? Sometimes a little script is plenty to get the job done. And using a script can be just as easy as using a GUI: it's double-clickable; it's instructive; and it's drag-n-drop. It just doesn't have pictures. But for some reason people still freak out when they see that big, scary, text-based Terminal pop up. I used to be that way. But I've grown to love the power of the command-line, and simple shell scripts.
So here's another popular favorite: The .DS_Store Remover utility. There seem to be billions upon billions of little apps that do nothing but remove the .DS_Store files that the Mac OS puts in every folder on your system. Maybe there are so many of these little apps because it's actually such an easy thing to script. The nice thing about the script is, you can see and modify the code very simply and easily, whereas with one of these GUI wrappers, God knows what it's actually doing.
For those who don't know, the .DS_Store file holds information about how a given folder should display when it's opened. It remembers the position, size and view style (i.e. column, list or icon) of the window. Why remove them, you may ask? Some people don't like them showing up on their windows boxes, apparently. Too messy. Ahh, if only I could write a script to delete Windows boxes. That seems like the better approach.
Anyway, here's my script version. I call it "DSStoreRemover," which frankly I think is possibly the most ingenious and creative name for anything ever in the history of humans on planet Earth.
It's a really, really, drop-dead stupid simple script that takes a folder path as a variable which is used in a find command that then, in turn, executes rm on anything named ".DS_Store."
See, you don't need a GUI for this. Hell, you almost don't need a script.
.DS_StoreRemover Script
See the code
So here's another popular favorite: The .DS_Store Remover utility. There seem to be billions upon billions of little apps that do nothing but remove the .DS_Store files that the Mac OS puts in every folder on your system. Maybe there are so many of these little apps because it's actually such an easy thing to script. The nice thing about the script is, you can see and modify the code very simply and easily, whereas with one of these GUI wrappers, God knows what it's actually doing.
For those who don't know, the .DS_Store file holds information about how a given folder should display when it's opened. It remembers the position, size and view style (i.e. column, list or icon) of the window. Why remove them, you may ask? Some people don't like them showing up on their windows boxes, apparently. Too messy. Ahh, if only I could write a script to delete Windows boxes. That seems like the better approach.
Anyway, here's my script version. I call it "DSStoreRemover," which frankly I think is possibly the most ingenious and creative name for anything ever in the history of humans on planet Earth.
It's a really, really, drop-dead stupid simple script that takes a folder path as a variable which is used in a find command that then, in turn, executes rm on anything named ".DS_Store."
See, you don't need a GUI for this. Hell, you almost don't need a script.
.DS_StoreRemover Script
See the code
Labels: Scripts, ScriptSharing
This entry was posted
on Saturday, October 15, 2005 at 3:06 PM.
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8:40 AMHi,
not sure if you knew, but you can also remove the results of a "find" run simply by using
find (path-to-folder) -name .DS_Store -delete
"And now you know it" :)
-Markus
2:15 PM
I did not know that. That's much easier. Thanks!
-systemsboy
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