"open -a" is not the answer wanted, because I want to debug the Mac OS X application automatically. This means it's better if someone can give the command line like [program] [args] format. So ltrace mechanism can make [program] as target for debugging and take [args] as input.
I have tried command line like "/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft PowerPoint" /Users/poc.pptx, only Microsoft Point process started but the poc.pptx not opened.
After grepping the Microsoft Point with pptx file opened, it's something like: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft PowerPoint -psn_0_307275, there is no argument "poc.pptx".
I even manually use "gdb /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft PowerPoint" and "set args /Users/poc.pptx", and then "r", the target application can not run with the certain file opened.
I am confused about this, so, is there someone can help me to solve this problem?
Thank you!
open -b com.microsoft.PowerPoint <filename> seems to work for me to open presentations from the command line.
Go to file directory and then type
open -a "Microsoft PowerPoint" <filename.ppt>
Here "Microsoft PowerPoint" is the name of power point application, please check name of power point if it is different in your application directory.
This is working perfectly fine on my MAC (OSX 10.8).
We can also give complete path instead of just file name.
open -a "Microsoft PowerPoint" <ppt file path>
This is also working fine.
I know this is a old question, but here is my 2ct anyway.
I add the applications I want to open through command line in /usr/local/bin as a symlink.
I never run into any problems, but as Ken stated it depends how a application handles arguments.
Example with Visual Studio:
First I check what makes the application start bij executing the file inside the App contents like:
$ /Applications/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron
If that works, then I create the symlink as follows (ln -s <path-to-app> <path-to-symlink>):
$ ln -s /Applications/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron /usr/local/bin/vs
After that I can start up Visual Studio with the current folder loaded as:
~/Development/SomeProject $ vs .
If PowerPoint is not opening a document passed as a command-line argument, then that's a reflection on how PowerPoint was coded. There's nothing anybody but Microsoft can do about that.
The OS does not normally use that technique to tell applications to open documents. Instead, it passes Apple Events to the application. Cocoa will, by default, accept command-line arguments and treat them similarly to such Apple Events, but apparently PowerPoint is overriding that default behavior.
If you want to debug or trace PowerPoint, I recommend that you do it in two steps. First, launch it without arguments under the debugger or trace program. Then, tell it to open a document. You can do that in the normal way, using the Finder and/or Dock, or you can use open -a .... Such a request to open a document will not launch a second instance of PowerPoint, it will deliver an event to the already-running PowerPoint which you are debugging/tracing. So, the result should be similar to what you seem to want.
Not sure if this will help you (depends on how you want to do your debugging), but you can use AppleScript from the command line, like this:
%osascript <<<EOD
tell application "Excel" to open "Users:xxx:Documents:sheet.xls"
EOD
When entered this way, your script can contain several lines, it does not have to be limited to a single one.
Related
Is there a way to make NeoVim as default text/code editor (without any bad side effects) ?Trust me, I looked to lots of StackOverflow question/answers and tried a few things but nothing worked for me.
Note: I'm on macOS Big Sur (version 11.2.1). What I want is when I click on files to open in NeoVim.
--> For example, in ~/.zshrc (and added to ~/.bash_profile also just in case) I have:
Note: zsh is my default shell
alias nvim=$HOME/nvim-osx64/bin/nvim
export EDITOR="nvim"
export VISUAL="nvim"
When I do set in Terminal it shows:
EDITOR=nvim
VISUAL=nvim
And yes, I quit and started the terminal (I'm using iTerm2). I even reboot.
--> I will place my $PATH here just in case it has anything to do it that. When I do echo $PATH it shows:
--> And, just in case someone suggests:
I can't Select a File > Open With... and select NeoVim as default text editor, since that option doesn't show and I can't do Choose Other since I can't select NeoVim in that way.
If anyone needs more information, please say and I will edit the question with that info. Thanks!
Setting variables in the terminal will not affect the GUI file associations. To do that you have to change the OS's file associations.
Though it appears to be a small project and unsupported, I've had a good experience using duti. It's a wrapper around the Apple file extension API. The configuration did take me a minute to figure out. I'll post it if I can find it.
After a while I found the answer to my own question, here it is how you can set NeoVim in Mac as the default text editor. Now, you will be able click on files and opening them in NeoVim:
Some people recommended me to have a look at the follow links:
https://gist.github.com/Huluk/5117702
https://superuser.com/questions/139352/mac-os-x-how-to-open-vim-in-terminal-when-double-click-on-a-file
That didn't work for me but it served as a reference to look up related topics (automator + neovim).
After a while, I discover this blog:
https://blog.schembri.me/post/neovim-everywhere-on-macos/
Go and have a look at the blog, but here it is how you do it:
Launch Automator (Finder -> Applications -> Automator)
New Document -> Choose a type for your document: Application
In Actions search for Run AppleScript and drag that to where it says something like "Drag actions here..."
Delete the default example of AppleScript
Copy and Paste the code in the blog (where it says NeoVim.app) to where it previous had the default code
Save the new Automator app (save as aplicattion format). Save it in the Applications folder
Right-Click a file type you wish to open every time you click on them (e.g. .php file). Select Get Info or do cmd + i, it will open informations about that file. Scroll to wher it says Open With and select Other. Then just go to Aplicattions folder and select your new NeoVim "app".
Do the same to other file types if you wish.
You can now double click on your PHP files (or others if you did the same) and open them in NeoVim. Enjoy!
Note: You really need to do Right-Click, Get Info and look for Open With to change in all files with that extension. If you skip Get Info and just Right-Click + Open With, it will only work for that specific file...
This is the code from the blog:
on run {input, parameters}
set cmd to "nvim"
if input is not {} then
set filePath to POSIX path of input
set cmd to "nvim \"" & filePath & "\""
end if
tell application "iTerm"
create window with default profile
tell the current window
tell the current session to write text cmd
end tell
end tell
end run
This would open a new window even if you already had one open.
I change it so that it would open in a tab:
on run {input, parameters}
set cmd to "nvim"
if input is not {} then
set filePath to POSIX path of input
set cmd to "nvim \"" & filePath & "\""
end if
tell application "iTerm"
tell the current window
create tab with default profile
tell the current session to write text cmd
end tell
end tell
end run
Note: I'm using iTerm2. If you are using another Terminal Emulator, change where it says iTerm to the name of your terminal...
For anyone using Kitty on MacOS, I found a pretty simple way to accomplish this using the remote control feature.
First you need the following set in your kitty.conf:
allow_remote_control yes
listen_on unix:/tmp/mykitty
Using Automator like in #DGF's answer, I created an Application with the "Run Shell Script" action, and this is the script:
if [ -z "$(pgrep kitty)" ]
then
open /Applications/kitty.app
sleep 3 # allow ample time to startup and start listening
fi
/usr/local/bin/kitty # --to=unix:/tmp/mykitty-$(pgrep kitty) launch --type=os-window nvim "$#"
Save that as an application somewhere, and select it from "Open with"!
Note: to be honest, the logic to handle starting up kitty if it's not already running is a little flaky. But it seems to work great when kitty is already running, which of course it is most of the time for me. Also, it doesn't work at all if kitty is running but has no windows. :\
Choose nvim as the default application by means of a txt file sub-menu like here with Preview for PDFs:
So I am looking for a way to set Mac specific extended attributes (specifically kMDItemWhereFroms) for a file (Image File, Jpg) using AppleScript or AppleScript-Objc.
There is a command line tool that will do this xattr -w kMDItemWhereFroms . The problem is that on the several machines that I have access to (10.12, 10.13, and 10.14) when you run this command as a do shell script from within an AppleScript it does not work, the metadata is not added to the file. If I set Script Debugger to debug mode, and go through the script step by step it will actually set the metadata, but since that is not the way I am running the script, it is more of an interesting fluke than anything else. I have tried running the command with both "com.apple.metadata:" included and not included with the shell script and that makes no difference.
I have tried running my script through SD, Script Editor and osascript, and they all fail to update the metadata. So I am thinking that this tool might be broken when called from an AppleScript.
I found setxattr but that looks like it only applies to C.
So my questions are
1. Is there a way to set the extended attributes of a file on MacOS using Aobjc? if not then
2. Is there a way to get setxattr to work with either version of AppleScript? Probably not so
3. Any ideas how I might be able to get the command line tool xattr -w kMDItemWhereFroms to work when using scripting?
This is more of an annoyance for me, I am just being stubborn with wanting the source of the file to show up in the "Where From" data in the Get Info window from the Finder. I already am setting some metadata for the file using exiftool. So it is more of an interesting problem for me, than a critical problem that I must try and solve now. Thanks!
I can't figure out how to start the OneNote UWA from Windows command-line. The best I could do is find where it's installed. However, I don't know how to actually start it up from the command-line; as, the executables in that directory don't start OneNote UWA.
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Office.OneNote_16001.11901.20096.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
PS: I tried to use the same command-line that's in Windows TaskManager (below). However, the app doesn't startup nor does it give an error; even with elevated privileges.
"C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Office.OneNote_16001.11901.20096.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\onenoteim.exe" -ServerName:microsoft.onenoteim.AppXxqb9ypsz6cs1w07e1pmjy4ww4dy9tpqr.mca
I'd really appreciate any help suggestions to do this. If this is not possible (or nobody knows the answer, I would also be happy if someone knows how to associate a global hotkey to OneNote UWA.
I followed this tutorial and it worked great for me:
Launch Metro app from command line
my resultant command was this:
explorer.exe shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.Office.OneNote_8wekyb3d8bbwe!microsoft.onenoteim
which launched into OneNote (metro/winrt/uwa version and not the desktop version)
There is a shortcut you can do that would have worked in my case. When you look at the target of the shortcut you create... instead use this command line tool to get the full target (since you can't copy from the target box in the shortcut properties window) and then use this instead:
explorer.exe shell:<target value>
get the command line tool here:
LNK file parser
careful though because the value wraps when you use the LNK file parser in a command window. You can output the result text from lnk_parser_cmd to a text file to ensure you get the correct value. Their example is:
lnk_parser_cmd.exe shortcut.lnk
you would simply use:
lnk_parser_cmd.exe shortcut.lnk > result.txt
and then you can easily copy and paste the non-wrapped text from result.txt.
After Xcode update to version 8. The very useful Alcatraz PlugIn Manager is locked out and superb utilities like clang-format, or highlight selected word occurrences, or resize the font by use of a shortcut are gone.
How can I reenable clang-format to format my current source code file on save with a template .clang-format in any parent directory of the source file?
You could create a shell script that is added to Xcode 8 as a behavior: Xcode > Behaviors > +(to create new one) > Run script: (select file here), add shortcut like Cmd+Shift+S.
The script asks Xcode to save the current document. Then it extracts its filepath and calls clang-format to format that file in-place. Clang-format has to be available e.g. by using brew as the package manager to download it and having its path published for command line access. As usual the style guide used by clang-format must have the name .clang-format and must be in any parent folder of the source file.
Here is the script:
#!/bin/bash
CDP=$(osascript -e '
tell application "Xcode"
activate
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "s" using {command down}
--wait for Xcode to remove edited flag from filename
delay 0.3
set last_word_in_main_window to (word -1 of (get name of window 1))
set current_document to document 1 whose name ends with last_word_in_main_window
set current_document_path to path of current_document
--CDP is assigned last set value: current_document_path
end tell ')
LOGPATH=$(dirname "$0")
LOGNAME=formatWithClangLog.txt
echo "Filepath: ${CDP}" > ${LOGPATH}/${LOGNAME}
sleep 0.6 ### during save Xcode stops listening for file changes
/usr/local/bin/clang-format -style=file -i -sort-includes ${CDP} >> ${LOGPATH}/${LOGNAME} 2>&1
# EOF
Please exchange the path /usr/local/bin to the one where your clang-format executable resides.
Happy coding!
The mapbox/XcodeClangFormat extension looks like a promising way to get clang format working with Xcode8.
Due to the limitations of source editor extensions, unfortunately you can only specify one .clang-format file for all your projects. "Format on save" also is not available.
Found a viable solution in this blog - code-beautifier-in-xcode
Basically, we can have clang-format running as a service by automator and invoke it through Xcode whenever we need to format the code. Refer the blog for more details.
Unfortunately your little script often does not update the formatted file in Xcode because it stops listening to file updates when saving. Increasing the sleep durations in the script does not make it more reliable and introduces a lot of waiting time for the common file-save & file-format action.
What I did in your situation was to get my mac backup and restore macOS and Xcode to the last version where all the productivity plugins from Alcatraz work fine again. This boosted my productivity.
It looks like Alcatraz plug-ins get be back to work in Xcode 8+ when unsigning them. Because I am not in the situation to try that, I can only point you to that resource:
Examine the header Installation on that github page ClangFormat-Xcode.
I want to launch an app on OSX from a script. I need to pass some command line arguments. Unfortunately, open doesn't accept command line args.
The only option I can think of is to use nohup myApp > /dev/null & to launch my app so it can exist independently of the script that launches it.
Any better suggestions?
As was mentioned in the question here, the open command in 10.6 now has an args flag, so you can call:
open -n ./AppName.app --args -AppCommandLineArg
In OS X 10.6, the open command was enhanced to allow passing of arguments to the application:
open ./AppName.app --args -AppCommandLineArg
But for older versions of Mac OS X, and because app bundles aren't designed to be passed command line arguments, the conventional mechanism is to use Apple Events for files like here for Cocoa apps or here for Carbon apps. You could also probably do something kludgey by passing parameters in using environment variables.
An application bundle (.app file) is actually a directory. Instead of using open and the .app filename, you can move into the app's directory and start the actual machine code program located inside. For instance:
$ cd /Applications/LittleSnapper.app/
$ ls
Contents
$ cd Contents/MacOS/
$ ./LittleSnapper
That is the actual binary executable that might accept arguments (or not, in LittleSnapper's case).
In case your app needs to work on files (what you would normally expect to pass as: ./myApp *.jpg), you would do it like this:
open *.jpg -a myApp
You can launch apps using open:
open -a APP_YOU_WANT
This should open the application that you want.
open also has an -a flag, that you can use to open up an app from within the Applications folder by it's name (or by bundle identifier with -b flag). You can combine this with the --args option to achieve the result you want:
open -a APP_NAME --args ARGS
To open up a video in VLC player that should scale with a factor 2x and loop you would for example exectute:
open -a VLC --args -L --fullscreen
Note that I could not get the output of the commands to the terminal. (although I didn't try anything to resolve that)
I would recommend the technique that MathieuK offers. In my case, I needed to try it with Chromium:
> Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium --enable-remote-fonts
I realize this doesn't solve the OP's problem, but hopefully it saves someone else's time. :)
Lots of complex answers when you can simply access Applications folder and type:
open -a [APP NAME]
This is it!
I wanted to have two separate instances of Chrome running, each using its own profile. I wanted to be able to start them from Spotlight, as is my habit for starting Mac apps. In other words, I needed two regular Mac applications, regChrome for normal browsing and altChrome to use the special profile, to be easily started by keying ⌘-space to bring up Spotlight, then 'reg' or 'alt', then Enter.
I suppose the brute-force way to accomplish the above goal would be to make two copies of the Google Chrome application bundle under the respective names. But that's ugly and complicates updating.
What I ended up with was two AppleScript applications containing two commands each. Here is the one for altChrome:
do shell script "cd /Applications/Google\\ Chrome.app/Contents/Resources/; rm app.icns; ln /Users/garbuck/local/chromeLaunchers/Chrome-swirl.icns app.icns"
do shell script "/Applications/Google\\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\\ Chrome --user-data-dir=/Users/garbuck/altChrome >/dev/null 2>&1 &"
The second line starts Chrome with the alternate profile (the --user-data-dir parameter).
The first line is an unsuccessful attempt to give the two applications distinct icons. Initially, it appears to work fine. However, sooner or later, Chrome rereads its icon file and gets the one corresponding to whichever of the two apps was started last, resulting in two running applications with the same icon. But I haven't bothered to try to fix it — I keep the two browsers on separate desktops, and navigating between them hasn't been a problem.
Beginning with OS X Yosemite, we can now use AppleScript and Automator to automate complex tasks. JavaScript for automation can now be used as the scripting language.
This page gives a good example example script that can be written at the command line using bash and osascript interactive mode. It opens a Safari tab and navigates to example.com.
http://developer.telerik.com/featured/javascript-os-x-automation-example/
osascript -l JavaScript -i
Safari = Application("Safari");
window = Safari.windows[0];
window.name();
tab = Safari.Tab({url:"http://www.example.com"});
window.tabs.push(tab);
window.currentTab = tab;
Simple, here replace the "APP" by name of the app you want to launch.
export APP_HOME=/Applications/APP.app/Contents/MacOS
export PATH=$PATH:$APP_HOME
Thanks me later.
With applescript:
tell application "Firefox" to activate
Why not just set add path to to the bin of the app. For MacVim, I did the following.
export PATH=/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin:$PATH
An alias, is another option I tried.
alias mvim='/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim'
alias gvim=mvim
With the export PATH I can call all of the commands in the app. Arguments passed well for my test with MacVim. Whereas the alias, I had to alias each command in the bin.
mvim README.txt
gvim Anotherfile.txt
Enjoy the power of alias and PATH. However, you do need to monitor changes when the OS is upgraded.
To Create a New Text File OR open an existing one, in any folder, using a Text/Code Editor like the Free TextMate app on MACOSX, use this command on Terminal:
open -n /Applications/TextMate.app --args "$PWD/some file.txt"
Instead of a Text File, you can use any file type, based on your app's requirements and its support for this syntax.
This command also simulates the New Text Document Here Command on Windows and has been tested on MacBook Pro 2021 and Monterey 12.2.1 successfully.