Jul 17, '03 10:32:00AM • Contributed by: robg
The macosxhints Rating:
[Score: 9 out of 10]
- Developer: Monkeyfood Software / [Product Page]
- Price: Free
In the current version of OS X, the only way to set these helpers is to use the Internet Explorer "Protocol Helpers" preference panel. As Vince's author writes on the product's info page:
... in order to configure something that is integral to the Mac OS you have to use *a web browser* that is built by Microsoft - If that doesn't seem wrong to you then you've already given your soul to Bill Gates.Given the recent announcement of the end of new IE versions on the Mac, I expect that we'll soon (Panther?) see an Apple replacement for setting protocol helpers in OS X ... but until that time, Vince does the job perfectly. Once launched, you get a small pop-up menu listing all of the available protocols, along with a short description, an example URL, and the currently assigned helper application. To reassign a helper, just select the protocol from the pop-up menu, click the Change Helper button, and then find the new helper application. Very simple, very easy to understand, and free of the reliance on a web browser as the configuration tool.
The only reason I marked it down from a 10 is that, unlike the preferences panel in IE, there doesn't seem to be a way to easily add new URL types to the configuration panel. Perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious, but there's no help file available to see if I'm just being dense :-).
