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Filed under: TUAW Tips

TUAW Tip: Freshening Up 'Recommended Applications'

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on Aug 19th, 2008

Reader Julius wrote in with an annoying problem: Whenever he tries to open a file by selecting "Other" from the "Open With" contextual menu item in the Finder, he's presented with a list of "Recommended Applications" that (more often than not) has the app he wants grayed out.

Ideally, there would be some preference to automatically show "All Applications" instead of just "Recommended Applications," but that doesn't seem to be the case. Sorry.

The best option for you comes from our own Erica Sadun, who says to drag the file onto any application icon with the Command and Option keys held down. That way, the Finder will force the app to open the file. This works with items in your dock, or just with an open Applications folder in the Finder.

Otherwise, every application maintains a list of the kinds of files it can open. Launch Services, a part of the Mac OS X system, reads these lists, and compiles the set of "Recommended Applications" that you are presented with.

As such, many users recommend keeping your Launch Services tidy by rebuilding it using the Terminal, or a utility like RCDefaultApp. It will at least remove the cruft from your list of available applications.

Thanks and good luck, Julius!

Tags: applications, launchservices, openwith, rcdefaultapp, recommended, terminal

Filed under: Features, How-tos, Tips and tricks, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

Ask TUAW: Open With, AFP, iTunes with cell phone, escaping iPhoto, and more

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on May 23rd, 2007

This week in Ask TUAW we'll be considering questions about the "Open With..." menu option, mounting drives over a local network, using iTunes with a cell phone, getting all your original photos out of iPhoto, and syncing files between a notebook and a desktop Mac. Remember new Mac users and Switchers who are enjoying our Mac 101 series should feel very welcome to post questions for Ask TUAW; we're happy to have them. As always, please submit your questions by commenting to this post or using our tip form.

Continue reading “Ask TUAW: Open With, AFP, iTunes with cell phone, escaping iPhoto, and more”

Tags: AFP, Ask TUAW, AskTuaw, ChronoSync, iPhoto, iTuneMyWalkman, Martian Slingshot, MartianSlingshot, Quicksilver, RCDefaultApp

Filed under: How-tos, Tips and tricks, Odds and ends, TUAW Tips

TUAW Tip: Change your default browser or default mail client without launching Safari or Mail

by Laurie A. Duncan (RSS feed) on Nov 7th, 2006

Scott may have ranted about this subject before and it's very possible that I have responded with these suggestions before, but since he gets a do-over, I get one too!

I agree with Scott that Apple is just plain wrong in making its users launch Safari and Mail in order to change their default to something else. I understand why they do it - I just don't agree with their tactics. That being said, there are ways to avoid doing it Apple's OS X way and instead do it the old Classic Internet Config way. Launching Safari is no big deal, obviously, but you shouldn't have to if you're not interested in using it. Having to launch Mail in order to tell it that you want to use something else is a bit more of a pain since you can't launch Mail and access the preferences without setting up an account! Why must I set up an account (even a bogus one) in a mail client that I don't plan to use? Fortunately most mail clients ask you when you launch them if you want them to become your default. That's a good thing. But some of those apps (Entourage comes to mind) only ask you once and if you decline at that time you're back to square one.

MisFox, More Internet and RCDefaultApp are the three apps that come to mind for Scott (and anyone else who cares) to check out.

  • MisFox stands for Missing Internet Settings for X and it's a GUI app for changing a variety of internet protocol settings. MIME type settings and helper apps.
  • More Internet is a system preference pane which does pretty much the same thing, and it's Universal Binary.
  • RCDefaultApp is also a preference pane and does all of the above and then some. It, too, is Universal Binary.

All three will handle mail client and browser default settings without having to ever launch Safari or Mail if you don't want to. All three are free. A colleague just pointed me to IC-Switch, which I wasn't aware of previously and it does all those same things in regard to Internet Config settings - but it installs as a menubar item so that you can change defaults on the fly.

If you're aware of other apps that do the same thing, let us know in the comments!

Tags: internet config, InternetConfig, mac preferences, MacPreferences, misfox, more internet, MoreInternet, rcdefaultapp

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