Automatically fit long file names in Apache directory listing pages

by Derek Swingley

Does anyone still run Apache locally for web development? I do. I know there are other simpler, command line based options but I still like having apache there, always on. Depending on what I'm doing, I use CodeKit, or something else with live reload, or a hot loader but I still like that I can drop a file or directory in a directory apache knows about and it's accessible via localhost. Sure, Apache is almost always guaranteed to break when I do a major OS upgrade but that's a once-a-year annoyance (at most).

Anyway, since I regularly look at apache directory listings, I get annoyed by apache truncating file names. This is what I'm talking about:

And here's the improved version:

To get the latter, improved version, first make sure Apache is loading the autoindex_module. Check your httpd.conf to make sure the appropriate LoadModule line is not commented out: 

LoadModule autoindex_module libexec/apache2/mod_autoindex.so

Next, add an <IfModule> block somewhere that specifies NameWidth=* like so: 

<IfModule autoindex_module>  
    IndexOptions NameWidth=*
</IfModule>

Restart apache: 

apachectl restart

That's it!