I have setup an OSX service based on an Automator workflow that contains (among others) an Obj-C action.
I have successfully localized the Obj-C action, but I am not able to localize the service menu entry.
The Services implementation guide says one has to create a ServicesMenu.strings file for every localization. Other docs, e.g. this, say the same, and this SO entry suggests in an answer to apply some console commands to refresh a system file, but I am afraid to do so without understanding.
I have created the localized ServicesMenu.strings files in the Xcode project of the Obj-C action (because the Automator does not have an localization function), but these files are surely in the wrong bundle.
The problem is that I don't know where to place these files.
Any help is appreciated.
EDIT:
One of the links cited above says:
Adding a Localized ServicesMenu.strings file
To localize this text, you will need to add a UTF-16 encoded strings file named ServicesMenu.strings to your application project or Automator workflow bundle resources (details on how to do this are below). This strings file will contain, for each service menu item you are providing, an entry that uses the default text as the key, and the translated text as the value. For each language you wish to support, you will provide a translated ServicesMenu.strings file in a language-specific project (.lproj) directory in your project resources.
...
If you are providing a service from an Automator created workflow, you will need to manually add the strings files and .lproj resource directories to the workflow bundle. You can find Automator created workflow bundles in your home directory under ~/Library/Services.
I have done exactly this, but the localization does not work.
Below I added my Info.plist content, the folder structure and the ServiceMenu.strings file contents.
Here is my own solution. Maybe it helps somebody else.
The 1st problem was that I did not read the docs carefully enough. The text cited in my question continues:
Refreshing the Services menu
Once you have provided localized text for your service menu item title, you may need to refresh the Services menu list to see the changes. One way to refresh the list of services shown in the Services menu is by using the services debugging tool pbs. This is a command-line tool located in /System/Library/CoreServices that provides useful services debugging features, such as refreshing the list of services or printing out the current list of registered services. Listing 3 shows an example of a command-line you can enter into the Terminal application to refresh the list of services for English and French.
Listing 3 Example use of pbs to refresh services.
/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs -existing_languages en fr
The 2nd problem was that the command given in Listing 3 above did not work for me. However the command
/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs -update
actually updated the service menu and the localized menu entry was displayed.
Related
I am working on a Mac app. I ultimately want to use default app icons within my app. From the Info.plist and the Resource folder of an app I can get the .icns file and convert that to the image format I need. But I need to know the default application associated with the particular file extension, if any.
So how to get the default application that the system currently associates with a given file extension?
Don't go digging in other apps' bundles. It's always best to work at the level of abstraction that suits the question you want to ask. If you want to get the icon that the Finder (or a Mail attachment, etc) would display for a file of a particular type, use the NSWorkspace iconForFileType: method.
I think what you're looking for is part of the OSX Launch Services: LSCopyDefaultApplicationURLForContentType API. This returns the info on apps that can open specific Uniform Type Identifiers. There's also a similar API called LSCopyDefaultApplicationURLForURL to check which app opens a specific known file.
I have a Cocoa app "PDFHistory" on Mac OS X that uses the NSDocument architecture to save and load PDF files that are internally formatted specially for my app. I want to make it so whenever I save a file (e.g., "mydoc.pdf") from PDFHistory, then subsequently double-clicking on mydoc.pdf will automatically open it in PDFHistory.app. However, I don't want to make it so all .pdf files are automatically opened in PDFHistory, but rather use the system default (probably Preview.app). The .pdf suffix is a requirement, though, since I need the user to be able to e-mail the files to other users who can view the file in their default PDF viewer.
The problem is that if I set the LSHandlerRank to "Owner", then all .pdf files will be opened with PDFHistory, which is bad (since I only understand the internals of the .pdf file that PDFHistory wrote out). But if I set LSHandlerRank to "Alternate", then all .pdf files will be opened to the system default app (Preview.app), which is confusing for the user who had just created the file using my app.
Once upon a time, "creator codes" could be used to implement this sort of capability, but launch services started ignoring them back in Snow Leopard (see http://tidbits.com/article/10537). UTIs are not a substitute that provide this capability (see http://boredzo.org/blog/archives/2009-09-22/how-not-to-use-utis).
Using Finder to get info on the file allows the user to specify a specific app to use to open the specific file. This supposedly works by setting a "usro" property in a the file's resource. There is some open-source code to mimic this behavior (https://github.com/AlanQuatermain/SetAppAffinity), but is uses deprecated functions, and so would cause Apple to reject the app from the App Store. Similarly, people have posted AppleScript to set this property (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2597365), but sandboxing would prevent me from invoking it.
Although the .pdf suffix is a requirement in order to be able to send the files to users on other systems/platforms, I considered trying to have the suffix registered with two extensions as ".phistory.pdf", which would allow "file.phistory.pdf" to be opened in PDFHistory, but "file.pdf" would be opened in the default PDF viewer. However, this simply didn't work: it appears that the final suffix is the only one used by launch services, and everything before that is ignored.
So is there any way to have my app be the default app for opening files that it created itself?
I am writing a image viewer application, which I need to set as default application for jpeg/gif files. There is an API LSGetApplicationForItem/Info for getting information on what is the default application.
But I am not able to find an API where I can set my application as the default viewer for image files.
Can you please help
You want the LSSetDefaultRoleHandlerForContentType function. Pass kUTTypeGIF for GIF, kUTTypeJPEG for JPEG.
Please only do this when the user explicitly tells you to. Otherwise, they will hate you.
There's not a public API to do that, as far as I know. Instead, you register, using Info.plist (or the Document Types section of the Info editor in Xcode), that you are a provider of viewing and/or editing for whatever file types you are interested in. This will cause the system to choose your app if there's no other app who can open those file types, and will put you in the running if the user chooses Open With from the context menu when selecting a file in the Finder.
My application uses new proprietary file formats with extensions never been used before. I would like to associate specific icons to display my files in finder with nice iconography. As far as I know LaunchService is responsible to handle all these data, however I'm confused where, when and how shall I create associations.
Which entries I have to add to plist?
Where I need to actually register this extension - during installation? Is there any script for this?
Add a CFBundleDocumentTypes key to your plist, see
Storing Document Types Information in the Application's Property List
Problem: I have to support users who need to edit web pages. Some of these web pages exist only as textarea controls. Fortunately, there is a firefox plugin that allows the user to open the textarea in a default text editor. Unfortunately, this plugin requires you to point to the EXE file of the text editor you want to invoke.
This is a reasonable requirement, but ##$%^ Microsoft Expression Web is one of those applications whose shortcut .lnk file does not appear to point to a real EXE file. If there is an EXE file somewhere, it's hidden.
Question:
How can I locate the actual EXE file so people can configure Microsoft Expression web to be their editor of choice?
Update: I should have emphasized that I was looking for a way to automate this via script or batch file (hence the SO posting, in case anyone's "not-programming-related" spidey sense was tingling).
I found my executable in the following location:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Web Designer\EXPRWD.EXE
I'm not sure if that gives you what you need, but you can always have your users (or programmatically) search for EXPRWD.EXE and go from there.