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Old 05-09-2007, 10:35 AM   #1
Robin Springall
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Default "Open With" menu in Tiger

Hello chaps, how can I modify the Open With menu so it doesn't have so many applications to choose from? With JPEGs I leave the defalt as Preview, but when I want to choose Photoshop I have to trawl through such a long list of apps that scrolls off the bottom of the screen!

   
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Old 05-09-2007, 02:45 PM   #2
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Hello chaps, how can I modify the Open With menu so it doesn't have so many applications to choose from?
I don't think you can. I believe that the OS asks each application what formats they understand, then builds the list based on their responses. I don't think its settable.

   
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Old 05-09-2007, 11:00 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by Robin Springall View Post
Hello chaps, how can I modify the Open With menu so it doesn't have so many applications to choose from? With JPEGs I leave the defalt as Preview, but when I want to choose Photoshop I have to trawl through such a long list of apps that scrolls off the bottom of the screen!
The simplest solution is to delete most of your applications. This will also simplify other aspects of your life.

You could, of course, change the default for all jpegs to Photoshop but that's maybe not what you want to do.

   
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Old 05-17-2007, 07:13 AM   #4
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Don't forget that you can drop documents onto an application's icon in the dock to open it.
If you need a JPEG occasionally opened by a different app, that's probably the easiest, if the Open With... list is too long.

Or you could build an Automator contextual menu item to open a file with Photoshop!
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Old 05-19-2007, 09:28 AM   #5
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Don't forget that you can drop documents onto an application's icon in the dock to open it.
Thanks, Ben – simplest is best!

   
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Old 05-19-2007, 11:40 AM   #6
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Don't forget that you can drop documents onto an application's icon in the dock to open it.
Something I keep trying to do in Windows, to my constant frustration...

   
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Old 05-19-2007, 01:13 PM   #7
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Something I keep trying to do in Windows, to my constant frustration...
And? You can drop documents onto shortcuts in Windows. The execution maybe slightly different, but the concept is exactly the same.

   
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Old 05-19-2007, 01:25 PM   #8
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It works the same way in Linux as well.

   
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Old 05-19-2007, 09:30 PM   #9
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And? You can drop documents onto shortcuts in Windows. The execution maybe slightly different, but the concept is exactly the same.
Hmm, I get into strife when I try to drop them onto the icons in the task bar (which is where the dock is on the Mac). Win2K tells me I can't do that.

   
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Old 05-20-2007, 03:26 AM   #10
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Hmm, I get into strife when I try to drop them onto the icons in the task bar (which is where the dock is on the Mac). Win2K tells me I can't do that.
The task bar can contain many things:
  • buttons (not icons) for open applications / windows
  • a quick launch bar with icons for shortcuts to applications
  • the tray with icons (not buttons) of "background" programs that don't have an (open) window
  • toolbars - essentially areas (or minimized into buttons) that serve as a shortcut to a directory rather than a program (or consider it a shortcut to explorer for opening a specific directory in the form of a menu); in fact, the quick launch bar is a special case of this
Apart from that you can have shortcuts to applications as well as actual applications (.com, .exe, etc.) in any directory - including the desktop which is a directory only presented differently.

So what, if anything, corresponds to the dock? The closest analogue is the quick launch bar which simply contains shortcuts to programs. If my quick launch bar contains a shortcut to a program that can handle a particular type of document, then I can drag a file onto that shortcut and the corresponding application will open with the file I dragged to it. For instance, I have a shortcut to MS Word in my quick launch bar, and I can drag a .txt file to it - the result is that Word will open with the text file loaded. This is exactly the same mechanism as dragging a document onto an application "in" the dock on a Mac. Put differently: the dock is not the analogue of the task bar - it's the analogue of the quick launch bar (normally found on the task bar).

But Windows has other mechanisms for opening dragged documents (all probably with analogues in Mac, but I'm less sure of these, or their mechanism):
  • The first -- and most basic -- is that you can drag a document onto the actual location of an application (as opposed to a shortcut to that application).
  • The second is that you can drag a document onto an application's shortcut - no matter in which directory (folder) it lives; that includes shortcuts on your desktop, which is a directory
  • The third is that you can drag a document onto the (main) window of an already-open application: if it supports multiple documents it will try to open it, or do some other sensible thing with a file type it recognizes; sometimes, you can also drag a file onto the title bar of that window for the same effect. Now back to the task bar and its buttons for already-open applications (possibly minimized); these are a special type of application window, that don't directly support dragging a document onto; however, when you hover over one with the document you're dragging, the application window will be restored (or be brought to the foreground), and then allow you to drop the document onto the application window.

Finally: where the taskbar in Windows is located is irrelevant. It may be sitting on the bottom, but that's not fixed. You can drag it to any edge of your desktop. Mine is always sitting on the left, and on auto-hide so normally it's out of the way, but wide, so I can read a good deal of the text of each of the open-application buttons, which makes it much easier to find the one you want, even with many open windows. I've been doing this since I started to use NT4. (I'm not sure if the dock on a Mac can be moved, but I suspect it can.)

   
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