Mac OS X Panther, Setting Default Application Handlers

Tutorials
February 11, 2005
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As intuitive as Mac OS X was designed to be, there are still times when we have to step in and tell it how to handle certain file types – setting a default application handler*.

What this means is, setting it so that if you double click on a certain file type, Mac OS X knows exactly which application to associate the file type to and automatically launches the file using the associated application. This can be extremely useful when your Mac accumulates more and more applications and Mac OS X begins to associate your more often used files with the wrong applications.

In our example, we have a PHP file that has been automatically associated with Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX that has been installed on our test Mac. Despite the WYSIWYG interface of Dreamweaver MX, PHP files are at best modified using text editors and one of the best is Apple’s TextEdit. At the moment double clicking our PHP file will automatically launch it in Dreamweaver MX.

To remove the chore of constantly having to drag the PHP file over to TextEdit we will set TextEdit as the default application handler for all PHP file types on our test Mac in six easy steps.

select the PHP file;
Cmd + Click(right click on a two button mouse) the PHP file and click ‘Get Info’ from the drop down menu;

in the Info Pane, click the ‘Open With’ drop down menu and select ‘Other’ if the application you desire(TextEdit in our case) is not displayed;

select the desired application handler from the open Finder window;
if the desired application appears faded and unaccessible, clicking the ‘Enable’ drop down menu and selecting ‘All Applications’ should make the application accessible;

if you wish to associate ALL PHP files to the desired application, click the ‘Always Open With’ checkbox at the bottom left of the open Finder Window before clicking on ‘Add’

Easy enough? Now, get cracking…

* Generally, Mac OS X makes the default application handler obvious to the user by using icons that represent the application.