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.
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 am distributing my OS X application on individual USBs and, for this reason, everything must be self contained.
The app itself lets users input information and then saves this information to an existing text file (specifically an ObjectDB database). Herein is my problem.
I'd like to keep this text file inside the app itself (i.e. inside the Content folder) so it's out of the way and can't be deleted by the average user. But once the app is signed, it seems the text file can't be altered with any new information without getting flagged by Gatekeeper. Is this really the case? There's no way to store data files within apps now?
I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.
Yes, you are correct. If you modify the application package, the signed package is no longer valid. That's kind of the purpose of signing a package.
Your options are to store the text file in a temporary folder on the user's computer, or to instruct your users to disable gatekeeper (don't do this).
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.
The thing is, I created a file with custom information and a unique extension, let's say (.qwas). If I modified the Registry in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT I can change its icon and choose which program will open it. What I want to do, is that when I double click it, it opens my .NET app and in the app have an event like FileOpenApp. So I can extract information from the file and do custom methods.
The kind of behavior I want to make is similar to the project files of an aplication, like the .fla of flash.
I don't know how to start with this idea, I hope anyone knows even the name of this type of procedure.
Thanks
Can't you pass the name of the file as an argument to your .Net App. Something like
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications[name of APP]\shell\open\command]
#="\"[path to app]\" \"%1\" %*"
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