Hobbes
Hobbes is a small UNIX-style file watcher for OSX, written after experiencing some OSX bugs with my usual standby guard. The filenames of modified files are simply echoed to stdout, one file per line. You take it from there.
Complex tasks can be accomplished by combining hobbes with other commands such as xargs, for example:
# automatic GHC recompile when your source files change
hobbes "*.hs" | xargs -n1 ghc --makexargs -n1 <command> means essentially "run the command on each word of input". So ghc --make is run on each modified file.
Another example: I have a script called kick that reloads the current tab in Chrome and then refocuses iTerm. With this command to hobbes I get automatic browser reloading on every save. Script here if you're interested.
hobbes "*.html" | xargs -n1 kickInstallation
First install haskell via your system's package manager. On OSX it's as simple as:
brew install haskell-platform
then install hobbes with:
cabal install hobbes
Thanks
Hobbes is a very small wrapper around the excellent hfsevents haskell library by Luite Stegeman.