Noodlesoft Forums

Hazel has a few hidden defaults that you can tweak. Since these are esoteric settings, there is no UI for them but you can set them using the commandline "defaults" program.

Debug
Example:

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defaults write com.noodlesoft.Hazel Debug -bool YES

Outlined in more depth here, this flag turns on debug logging.

ScanInvisibles
Example:

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defaults write com.noodlesoft.Hazel ScanInvisibles -bool YES

By default, Hazel ignores invisible files. If you have the need to process these (like files starting with a dot) then you can turn this on.

IgnoredBackupDirs
Example:

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defaults write com.noodlesoft.Hazel IgnoredBackupDirs -array dir1 dir2

When AppSweep does a scan, it first checks to see if the app is still installed. Problem is in some cases, the app is on a backup drive and you don't want to consider the app installed in such cases. While Hazel will ignore apps on your Time Machine backup, you may have other types of backups. Give Hazel a list of directories using the above setting to have Hazel treat those directory trees as backup folders.

ErrorNotificationFrequency
Example:

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defaults write com.noodlesoft.Hazel ErrorNotificationFrequency -int 0

In version 2.2.2, Hazel will limit the Growl error messages you get per file so that you aren't inundated with the same error message every time it runs. By default, this is set to once a day but you can set this to change the frequency however you like. Note that it is specified in seconds. If you set it to 0 (as in the example), Hazel will only bug you about the error the first time it happens. Note that the regular logs will show every instance of the error regardless.

How can one add the main directory on a backup volume when the volume has a space in its name? The second part of the name (ie the name after the space) ended up as the second array item...

Try quotes around the path: "/path/to/some/directory"

Hey Mr. N-

Thanks very much for the defaults commands--they seem to do exactly what I'm looking for.

(I need Hazel to "see" the hidden or "dot" files in a particular directory so she can mess with them).
Problem is I tried issuing the command and it returned a prompt but nothing changed in hazel. In other words, she still can't see the hidden files in a directory/folder I point to. I tried running it under sudo, but that didn't work either.
I also tried it while hazel was running, not running, rule activated, not activated, etc.

Should I uninstall hazel and reinstall and try again?

TIA,
Chuck

Did you try turning on debug logging and see if the invisible files show up there? If so, post what it says there.

Sure thing,

After turning on Debug mode, I get the following messages in the Hazel.log file:

2010-10-28 13:35:14.784 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: About to process directory /Users/cen/Library/Preferences
2010-10-28 13:35:14.829 hazelfolderwatch[44970] File com.typeit4me.TypeIt4MeMenu.plist is busy. Skipping for now.
2010-10-28 13:35:14.837 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: Writing out DB file: /Users/cen/Library/Preferences
2010-10-28 13:35:14.843 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: Directory /Users/cen/Library/Preferences processed.
2010-10-28 13:35:14.843 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: Sleeping
2010-10-28 13:35:22.844 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: About to process directory /Users/cen/Library/Preferences
2010-10-28 13:35:22.891 hazelfolderwatch[44970] File com.typeit4me.TypeIt4MeMenu.plist is busy. Skipping for now.
2010-10-28 13:35:22.899 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: Writing out DB file: /Users/cen/Library/Preferences
2010-10-28 13:35:22.905 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: Directory /Users/cen/Library/Preferences processed.
2010-10-28 13:35:22.905 hazelfolderwatch[44970] DEBUG: Sleeping

Now that was two cycles of the log, but it pretty much keeps doing that and not much else.

TIA,
Chuck

Can you email me at support? Probably better to do this over email than in this thread.

Send me the log file plus any rules which you expect to run on the dot files. Also, the output of your rule preview would be great as well.

Thanks.