Comments on: Disappearing color labels in Mac OS X

By: Jessy

Jessy — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:20:15 +0000

I am quite aware of “ls -a”, that I have used to visualize the . hidden files.
I guess I have just to survive to have some non labeled color files because I
won’t leave gedit!

Thanks anyway!

Jessy

By: Torleif

Torleif — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:10:31 +0000

Strange. Maybe things work differently in Snow Leopard. I did this in 10.4 and 10.5. If your files have a label, there should be ._ files though… remember that they are hidden (since they are starting with a dot). You can list them in the Terminal by using the A switch. For example:

li -lA

You can also make them show up in your Finder if you like. I do that sometimes, but usually have it off most of the time since folders become quite cluttered thanks to all the meta files OS X spreads around…

Anyways, good luck on your quest. Let me know if you figure out what the problem is

By: Jessy

Jessy — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:23:19 +0000

The inode number changes in both cases, using gedit and Xcode to open, edit and save a file. It remains never the same. Moreover, I cannot find any file ._

Thanks anyway for your help.

Please, let me know if you came up with some other ideas.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

By: Torleif

Torleif — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:06:48 +0000

Try to run this in the terminal

ls -li yourfile.txt

Take note of the first number, which is the inode number of your file. Then try to edit the file with xcode, save your changes and then run that command again. Check if the inode number stayed the same. Then try the same with gedit. Did the inode number change?

I once tried to mark a file as read-only, but for some reason TextEdit didn’t seem to care. Turned out TextEdit actually creates a new file and just replaces the old file. Maybe this is the case with gedit as well and that the label gets lost in that process?

You can also check if there is a file called ._yourfile.txt in the same folder as yourfile.txt, that’s where color labels are stored if I have understood correctly. If that file disappears, gets changed or something like that after you edit it with gedit then you at least know why the label goes away.

By: Jessy

Jessy — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 11:52:41 +0000

Thanks for the answer, Torleif, but it does not work.
I understood the problem, but I do know how to find a
workaround to solve it.
The files affected by this behaviour are all those
that I decided to open with gedit. IF I choose Xcode
(by apple), the problem does not happen anymore.
Now, is there a way to get permanent color label for files that one decides
to open with “non-apple” applications?

Thanks a lot for any comment.

By: Torleif

Torleif — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 22:19:44 +0000

Tried to remove the ._* files as well? What program do you use to view and save them with?

By: Jessy

Jessy — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 19:56:54 +0000

Hi Torleif,

I have a similar problem on a Mac snow Leopard.
I used certain label colors for some .m and .txt files.
If I open and read them everything is fine, meaning that
the label color is kept. However, as soon as I modify and
save them, the label color is gone. The mdls command
shows “null” and the solution of removing .DS_Store
unfortunately does not work.

Do you have other ideas?

Thanks in advance!