Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

Certain applications will present different options for opening and saving files, and there
may be other uses for this common interface element.
NOTE Other items similar to Open and Save, which are available in many applications, are
Import and Export. The primary difference is that when you import or export a field, you are
generally opening a file using a file format other than the application’s native format (import)
or saving an open file in a format other than the application’s native format (export).
Other Common Application Features
Besides what we’ve covered previously in this chapter and elsewhere in the book, there are a few
other useful things to know about when working with applications in Leopard.
Choosing a Document’s Default Application
When you double-click a document, the document opens automatically in the default application
for that document. This application is usually the same as the one that created the document, but
not always. If you want to specify what application a document will open in, you can select from
a list of compatible applications from the Open With submenu from the document’s contextual
menu. The default application will be listed first, followed by any other application the system
identifies as being able to open that type of file.
NOTE If you drag a file over an application’s icon in the Finder, this will usually cause the
application to launch and attempt to open the file or files you dragged on it. If the application
can’t open that particular file type, unexpected results could occur.
If you’d like to change the default application associated with a specific file, or even all files
of the same type, you can select the new application in the Open With section of the file’s Get
Info window. Selecting the Change All button will make that application the default for all files
of that type.
NOTE There are a few things that OS X looks at when determining what application to use to
open a particular file: the file’s extension (which may be hidden) and any Finder metadata or
attributes associated with the file. Some files that are received from another computer or created
in a non-Aqua application (a Darwin application, for example) may have none of these. In
this case, you will be prompted to find a suitable application to open that file.
NOTE Occasionally you will not be able to open a file if the creating application doesn’t exist
on your computer. In that case, you may be able to import the document from within another
application. However, if the application is not compatible, you may get strange results.
Using the Services Menu
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The Application ➤ Services menu provides a way for the system, and other applications, to offer
features that are accessible from within any other application. A number of these services even
have system-wide keyboard shortcuts. For example, if you are reading some text in an application,
you can select a word or phrase from that text and hit Shift+Cmd+F to automatically open
a Google search on that phrase.