Setting the Default Application

From NeoWiki

This is a stub topic until sardisson or someone else edits the forum posts into a proper article.

On Mac OS X, in the absence of an HFS+ creator code, the last-installed application that claims it can open a certain type of file becomes the default application to open that file type (most Cocoa or UNIX applications fail to properly set the creator code on files they create).

Setting the default application to open NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Office, WordPerfect, and HTML, RTF or plain text documents

The following instructions apply equally for Start OpenOffice.org and for NeoOffice/J with the following exceptions:

1. Start OpenOffice.org does not contain the proper information to claim it can open Microsoft Office file formats or most "generic" formats like RTF and plain text, so it will not be listed in the Finder's drop-down lists by default.
2. OpenOffice.org/X11 cannot open WordPerfect documents.
3. NeoOffice/J properly claims it can open all of the document types it can open, but it respects established settings of installed applications (e.g. Microsoft Word, TextEdit, WordPerfect, or Safari) and will not set itself as the default application for their document types if those applications are already installed on your Mac.

Relevant trinity threads:

http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1079

http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1141

http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1217

http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1113

Caveats

• post-some security update, must have first launched the app you want to set as default
• file types without extensions, different file types (some internet apps set WDBN instead of W6BN or W8BN), so might have to repeat on 4-6 "variations" of Word doc to get all Word docs, etc.
• default for all documents of type vs for individual document