Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the '10.4: Use Automator to view any file in a text editor' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
10.4: Use Automator to view any file in a text editor
Authored by: tinb on Aug 16, '05 10:53:13AM

You can always drag&drop any (!) file onto the TextEdit icon to open that file. This works with TextEdit in Dock or in Finder view.
Sometimes applications are not able to recognize the correct file type and refuse to accept a specific file. Then D&D onto the icon will not work. To force this application to open a file, hold Option-Command while dragging around.



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.4: Use Automator to view any file in a text editor
Authored by: hamarkus on Aug 16, '05 02:16:28PM

Right, dragging a file onto a dock icon is in my humble opinion much faster than navigating through a pop-up menu, you certainly have to think less, which speeds up things for me a lot.



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.4: Use Automator to view any file in a text editor
Authored by: osxpounder on Aug 16, '05 02:26:15PM

If dragging and dropping works for you, that's great. For some of us, the less mouse dragging, the better -- that puts a lot of strain on our poor, tired and worn out mouse hands, and it's a relief to be able to get rid of some drag & drop moves, esp. ones that you find yourself repeating over & over.

I'm still not working in Tiger yet, so I'm keeping TextEdit in the Dock and drag/dropping to it, but I'll really appreciate this tip once I'm ready to work in Tiger. I tried doing what this tip accomplishes in another way, using the Mouse & Keyboard prefs panel to assign a key combo to Services->Open Selected File, but apparently that menu item's too deep in the stack -- the key combo won't work.

What I'd really like is a way to right-click selected text and immediately have "New Window Containing Selection" [new window in TextEdit, that is] on the contextual menu. I tried figuring out how to do that in Automator, but couldn't figure it out easily.

---
--
osxpounder



[ Reply to This | # ]
service shortcuts
Authored by: sjk on Aug 16, '05 06:32:59PM

You can assign a keyboard shortcut for the New Window Containing Selection service in System Preferences->Hardware->Keyboard & Mouse->Keyboard Shortcuts. That's also useful for reassigning shortcuts for services that conflict with each other (e.g. shift-command-U for Open URL in <browsername> is a common conflict).



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.4: Use Automator to view any file in a text editor
Authored by: hamarkus on Aug 16, '05 06:59:32PM

O.k., I guess as an avid trackpad user (I have even started to look for external keyboards with trackpads) and therefore having only have to move my index finger for dragging and dropping, I have different preferences to mouse users.



[ Reply to This | # ]