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User-Specified Binding Preferences

Launch Services’ first priority in determining the preferred application for a file or a non-file URL is whether the user has specified an explicit binding preference for that item.

In this section:

Choosing the Binding Preference for a File
Choosing the Binding Preference for a URL

Choosing the Binding Preference for a File

The user can specify a preferred application for a file by selecting the item in the Finder and choosing the Get Info command (see Figure 1-1).

The Open With pane of the Get Info window contains a pop-up menu listing all known applications in the Launch Services database that claim to accept the selected item (see Figure 1-2). The user can then choose an application from the menu to become the item’s preferred application (Figure 1-3).

Clicking the Change All button (Figure 1-4) makes the chosen application the preferred application for all items of the same document or URL type, rather than just for the single item selected.

Occasionally, a user may wish to designate a preferred application that doesn’t claim to accept a given document or URL. (This might be useful, for instance, for opening documents in a text-encoded format, such as HTML, as unencoded text in a text editor.) The Other item in the Open With pane’s pop-up menu opens the dialog shown in Figure 1-5, in which the user can navigate to the desired application. The All Applications item in the pop-up menu labeled Show at the top of the dialog allows any desired application to be selected; Recommended Applications causes those not claiming to accept the item to be dimmed.

Choosing the Binding Preference for a URL

There is no system-level user interface for setting non-file URL scheme handlers. However, individual applications can allow users to choose a preferred application for a specific URL scheme. For example:

• The Safari application allows users to set the http: handler by choosing a default web browser.

• The Mail application allows users to set the mailto: handler by choosing a default email reader.

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