JAN
05
Productivity Tricks : Open Files
Posted by Wendy
As far as I know, there are five effective ways to open our files with an application.
Open from Application
This way is usually used by not only Mac users but also Mac switchers where it helps you focusing on what you're aiming for and what kind of files you're going to process instead of pushing you down with pile of choices. Keystrokes used for this action is 
O
Assign Default Application
Some of Mac users prefer to assign every types of files their preferably application. So, whenever they want to process those types of files, they only need to double-click or open these files.
As you can see from image above, I've various kinds of applications that can open my image file, but the default application is set to Preview (Mac OS X built in image viewer as well as image editor for Leopard).
To set default application, 
clickGet Info. Then, go to the fifth section, which is labelled Open with, and there you can choose the default application for that kind of file.
Here is the illustration.
Use Open With
Recently, I've seen one of my buddies using this way to open up his file. This will be very efficient process provided that you've filtered out all of your applications (spams have been destroyed). And it's quite simple, you only need to v on your highlighted files, mouse hover clickOpen With element of your contextual menu and click on one of your applications to launch those selected files.
In that image, I'm going to open my image file with Firefox.
Utilize Dock Icon
If you've got widescreen display or you don't have too many applications so that you can put all of them into your Dock, this trick will be the most powerful of all. To open your files, simply drag and drop them onto on of your application icons. Of course, you shouldn't force your applications to open incompatible type of files.
To be honest, this is my most favorite way to open all my files before I've found out the last trick in this article.
Extend with Quicksilver
Even though Quicksilver is well-known for its ability and reliability as application launcher, I accidentally discovered its other amazing ability as Dock expander!
First of all, drag your files that you want them to be processed further. After that, invoke your Quicksilver using keystrokes
You should now get your files still in grab and your Quicksilver successfully displays the application icon you searched just now.
Drop your files onto the icon which is obviously working in the same way as your Dock icon. However, you will need to learn to type with only one hand.
Another Neat Little Trick for Icon View
By the way, I've stumbled upon this useful Terminal command lines to make all of your icons in your Desktop Huge!
defaults write com.apple.finder FinderViewOptions -dict IconSize -integer 256 killall Finder
This little trick is intended for the continuation of my previous article Finder Trick - Quickly Preview Files. Hope you can enjoy it.
click on image to view actual size.
COMMENTS
Davey Yzermans
January 6th, 2008 at 09:47 AM
You can also drag and drop a file on an app to open the file with that program.
Lukas Zimmer
January 7th, 2008 at 07:34 PM
You can also first invoke Quicksilver and then start dragging the file and drop it onto the Quicksilver application. So you got two hands to write in Quicksilver.
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