Hiding Drives, Folders and Files

Introduction

While deleting is not available on Arweave, ArFS clients hide content from its user and give them the option to show hidden content, similar to hidden files on a local Operating System.

Solution

Hiding ArFS files can be done by adding a . to the beginning of a Drive Name, Folder Name or File Name and making it a “dot file”.

This follows the standard for how to hide files on Linux/Mac OS. Windows OS will not automatically hide . files. If the client detects a Drive, Folder or File Name has a suffixed ., the corresponding entity (and its sub entities in the case of a drive or folder) must not be shown to the user.

Users can hide files in clients by either renaming it to include a . in the beginning.

Users can also hide files in clients by clicking a specific “Hide” button which will automatically rename the Drive, Folder or File with a . as the suffix.

Clients can surface hidden drives/folders/files via a special view in case the user would like to unhide content, similar to the "Show Hidden Content" setting on local operating system file viewers.

Drive Metadata Transaction

A Hidden Drive transaction resembles a standard ArFS Drive Entity Metadata transaction, however the name field for the drive in the Data JSON must have a suffixed . to be considered “Hidden”. The root folder transaction

Drive Name Before Hiding

"name": "Random Photos"

Drive Name After Hiding

"name": ".Random Photos"

Folder Metadata Transaction

A Hidden Folder transaction resembles a standard ArFS Folder Entity Metadata transaction, however the name field for the Folder in the Data JSON must have a suffixed . to be considered “Hidden”.

Folder Name Before Hiding

"name": "Junk Stuff"

Folder Name After Hiding

"name": ".Junk Stuff"

File Metadata Transaction

A Hidden File transaction resembles a standard ArFS File Entity Metadata transaction, however the name field for the File in the Data JSON must have a suffixed . to be considered “Hidden”. The file’s ArFS File Data transaction does not need to be changed.

File Name Before Hiding

"name": "someRecord.pdf"

File Name After Hiding

"name": ".someRecord.pdf"