By default Netbeans hides files starting with a dot (.) except the htaccess file.
You can change this behavior by going to
Tools > Options > Miscellaneous > Files
Here you will see “Ignored Files Pattern:” under “Files Ignored by the IDE”
I have changed the pattern to
^(CVS|SCCS|vssver.?\.scc|#.*#|%.*%|_svn)$|~$
and now I can see .gitignore, .hidden, etc. files in my projects.
PS: Thanks to Josh Pratt‘s post
