“Open With” …running application option

finder

This may have been asked before but I couldn't find any reference to it.

So Control-Click on a file brings up the context menu with "Open", "Open With.." and a number of other options. I often want to open a text based file in something other than the default application – for example, opening an mxml (Flex) file in BBEdit. The default application for that is Flash Builder and I don't want to change the default.

Is there some kind of extension or service I can add to have an "Open with Running Application…(list of open applications)"?

Or if not that, a way a user (me!) can register an app to open certain file types, so for example, BBEdit is listed as an option for mxml but is not the default?

Best Answer

Try to use automator. It's simple: create a new service with preferences (what items in which program to open). That's all - on right click menu there will be a new rule - "open in ...".

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MacOS Finder Applications – ‘Always Open With’ in OS X Issues

From the Finder, select a PDF file, open the Info panel (File ➔ Get Info or ⌘I), select your preferred application and then click Change All…

change all

Change the default action to open executable files in the editor instead of Terminal

Run plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.launchservices.plist and add an entry like this under LSHandlers:

<dict>
    <key>LSHandlerContentType</key>
    <string>public.unix-executable</string>
    <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
    <string>com.macromates.textmate</string>
</dict>

You can also change the default application for normal files with no extension:

<dict>
    <key>LSHandlerContentType</key>
    <string>public.plain-text</string>
    <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
    <string>com.macromates.textmate</string>
</dict>

You can apply the changes by restarting. Just logging out and back in doesn't seem to work. You could also rebuild the Launch Services database, but it has the side-effect that the warnings about opening applications for the first time are shown again.

Another option is to add something like this to a duti configuration file:

com.macromates.textmate public.unix-executable all
com.macromates.textmate public.plain-text all

To make this question more searchable, here is the error message Finder shows when you try to change the default application for executable scripts:

The operation can’t be completed.

An unexpected error occurred (error code -50).

Best Answer

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MacOS Finder Applications – ‘Always Open With’ in OS X Issues

Change the default action to open executable files in the editor instead of Terminal

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