[psisquared]

When I select a file and 'show info' I have the choice of changing the generic application that opens it....but, it's greyed out. Any ideas why? I'd like to set TextEdit as the application to open SimpleText docs. Any help would be much appreciated. Is this working for everyone else?

[akebono]

Where it says:

Show: Recommended Applications

Change it to:

All Applications

works like a charm...

[maguirer]

Akebono, I think the problem psisquared is having is that the "Choose Application" button is greyed out, so it doesn't even get as far as bringing up the dialog box.

I, too, have seen the same problem, and others have as well. I think it is because the simpletext file is set to use the File Creator code to open the app, but the "Generic Application" setting AFAIK uses a "." extension to figure out how to open a file.

Of course you can specifiy a specific application, but you have to do that everytime you come across a new simpletext file, which I'm sure no one wants to do.

One way you can kludge it is to add a ".txt" extension and blank out the file type/creator codes with ResEdit or xFiles. You might have to log out and back in again. You'll notice then that the icon has changed from a simpletext icon to a blank dog-eared page. Double-clicking the file will then ask you to specify a file. Hey, I said it was a kludge.

This is a bug, and Apple has to be notified about it on their feedback form.

I noticed this back in October with the public beta when both buttons were active, but chosing generic application was no different than selecting specific application. It would appear Apple's solution to this was to disable the button. Woohoo, great fix guys...

[kennethmac2000]

Yeah, as the previous poster said, it's because SimpleText files already have a creator code. The creator code always overrides any file extension.

I really think Apple needs to provide a System Preferences panel for this ASAP, and it should do at least two things:

1) Allow you to specify the default application for all file extensions, instead of having to do this rather untidily via the Show Info window.
2) Allow you to specify whether you want particular file extensions to override creator codes in the case of files with such a file extension.

The button in the Show Info window which allows you to set a particular application for only one file (or one group of files), whilst perhaps useful to 1% of users, seems quite bizarre to me and not really very useful.

I've also noticed that default applications set using the 'Choose Application...' button in Show Info don't always seem to 'stick' either.

This whole area of Mac OS X is a bit of a mess at the moment basically. :-)

[okandeel]

Assalamu 3alaikum,
Well I have a comment. If there is the ability to change the generic application, then there has to be somewhere where this is stored in the system. There has to be some sort of system registry that stores information about which applications opens files with which extensions. So if we know where this information is stored in the system, then perhaps we can somehow manipulate it without the need for a control panel or sth and adjust our personal needs to it. But where is this information stored?

[macunix]

the file /System/Library/Preferences/Internet.preference/Contents/MacOS/Internet
is an 'internet preferences' file. if you change (on A COPY) it's type/creator to ICAp you
can read and modify it with the classic IC app. i discovered this a while ago
but haven't played with it. file must be there for some reason. my main complaint
is X won't allow file mapping to classic app. if you choose classic app in inspector
nothing happens.

[xspriter]

can you do an 'ls -l' on that file from the command line and show us the output? I'm wondering what the permissions on that file are and who the owner and group are set to...