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Set default browser for Adobe help files Apps
This one is very obvious, but I found it helpful. Whenever I went to the help sections for my Adobe apps, it would launch Internet Explorer, even though I have Camino selected as my default browser.

To change this behavior, simply navigate to the Help folder located within any of your Adobe applications folders, do a get Info on any of the .html files, select the browser of your choice under the "Open with" section, and then click the "Change all" button. Now the help files will open in your browser of choice and it works much faster.

[robg adds: This might seem obvious to most of you, but I hadn't even thought to try it -- I just assumed that having set a default browser, related file associations (like .htm and .html) would also be changed, so I just thought it was some sort of Adobe-specific IE hard-coding. Obviously, this simple fix works as expected!]
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Set default browser for Adobe help files | 8 comments | Create New Account
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Set default browser for Adobe help files
Authored by: notmatt on Apr 21, '03 11:12:09AM
A bit of insight: this hint doesn't set the files to open with the default browser, merely the one you select. Having done this ages ago, all my adobe help files open with Mozilla, not Safari (my default). However, if you delete the resource fork, the files open with your default browser. As a note - there's got to be a better way to trash a resource fork than cp and mv - anyone know?

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Set default browser for Adobe help files
Authored by: BillC on Apr 21, '03 11:48:34AM

Of course, if you want local .html files to open in, say, BBEdit
by default but you still want the Adobe help files to open in a
browser, then this hint won't work for you. Stripping the
resource fork ends up being a necessity.



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Set default browser for Adobe help files
Authored by: rarpsl on Apr 21, '03 03:08:00PM

If you want to make a specific set of html files (such as the Adobe
Help files) open in a designated browser (independent of what
your default browser is set to), you can select all these files in lieu
of doing the "set all" as mentioned in this tip. This will alter ONLY
those files without affecting any other HTML files. This means that
any file with a "Use This Program" entry will still use that program
as opposed to your new selection unless it was part of the group
you just selected (just selecting one file and saying alter all files
will alter all HTML files).



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Stripping resource forks
Authored by: rtl on Apr 21, '03 04:42:59PM
For a file named "foo" in the current working directory, cp /dev/null foo/rsrc will also strip the resource fork. You can also check the size of foo/rsrc (using ls or otherwise) to see whether the file has a resource fork or not: if the size is nonzero, it has a resource fork, otherwise it doesn't. I use this script to accomplish the task in a somewhat safer manner:
#!/bin/bash

USAGE="nukersrc "

if [ $# == 1 ]
then
  if [ -f "$1" ]
  then
    if [ -s "$1/rsrc" ]
    then
      /bin/cp /dev/null "$1/rsrc"
    else
      echo "File $1 has no resource fork"
    fi
  else
    echo "$1 does not exist or is not a regular file"
  fi
else
  echo $USAGE
fi


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Delete Resource Fork painlessly
Authored by: Cantus on Apr 21, '03 09:34:07PM

Try GrimRipperCM.

"GrimRipperCM is a contextual menu plugin for deleting the
resource fork of a file."

Control-click the file in Finder and delete its resource fork.
Painless. You can select multiple files and batch delete the
resource fork too.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16168

(BTW I'm not the author of the above mentioned software)



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Changing the file type and creator
Authored by: ethomas on Apr 22, '03 05:26:10AM
If you have the Apple Developer Tools installed, there's a command line tool called SetFile. This allows you to set attributes of HFS+ files, including the file TYPE and CREATOR codes.

Simply cd into one of the Adobe Help directories, and issue the following command:

sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -c "" -t "" *.html

This will remove the file type and creator info from the resource forks of all html files in that directory. They should then open with your default browser.

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Set default browser for Adobe help files
Authored by: DanFrakes on Apr 22, '03 11:38:09PM

The problem with many of the suggestions here (deleting the
resource fork) is that this only removes file associations for those
files that adhere to all of the following criteria: (1) have resource
forks; (2) have a creator type set (or sometimes a file type); and
(3) haven't been specifically bound to any other application.

Mac OS X actually has several levels of file association: first the
OS checks to see if a file has been specifically associated with/
bound to a certain application; then it checks the creator code if
the file has a resource fork; then it checks the file extension (dot-
3); then it checks the file type (again, assuming the file has a
resource fork).

So changing the creator or file type may or may not change the
application a file is opened with. Likewise, deleting the resource
fork may or may not affect which application opens the file.

Using a utility like XRay, you can take one of two approaches in
this situation:

1) Bind a file (and, if desired, all similar files) to a specific
application.

or

2) Clear the application binding, creator code, and file type of a
file or a group of files. In the example here -- Adobe HTML help
files -- this means that the files will open using the browser
specified in Internet preferences.



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Set default browser for Adobe help files
Authored by: edmechem on Apr 21, '03 02:34:19PM

If you remove the type and creator data, say, with X-Ray, then whenever a file with an ".htm" or ".html" is opened, it'll open in whatever default browser you've set in system prefs.



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