No 'default Application' rest for the weary

[skiff]

If there's one thing I dread more than the spinning beach ball, it's the following dialogue box: There is no default application specified to open the document "xxxxxxx". I have yet to encounter a successful strategy to cope with this pain in the nether region.

When I do find a Google entry that addresses it, the text is always couched in ancient Chinese ideographs.

I'd be indebted to anyone who can explain this stuff to me.

 

[mad jew]

Erm, what type of file are you trying to open? What is the file extension?

 

[rdowns]

Click the file in question and Get Info. In the Get Info box, you will see an option to chose the application to open the file. Below that is a button to press that will open all of those file types with the application you choose.

 

[skiff]

I went to: Open with and in the drop-down box I found: <None> and the alternative: other....

Presumably there's a way to substitute something for "other...", but what?

What I've downloaded is a small utility, Dupseek, that seeks file duplicates and provides the means to delete them. Upon completion of the download, I encountered the following icon: dupseek-1.3.tgz. Double clicking it produced a folder: dupseek-1.3. In this folder I found the icon "dupseek" to launch the program and there's where progress ended —

 

[mad jew]

Dupseek is a command line based program. It's not really something I'd recommend to the average user considering it's quite powerful (it deletes files after all) yet not user friendly.

 

[skiff]

Well, okay — lets agree the use of Dupseek engenders some risk. I wasn't soliciting an opinion about Dupseek, I want to know how to cope with that dialogue box described above. I find myself in that situation from time to time, how do I open a file if I don't have a "default application"?

 

[WildCowboy]

You select the "other" option and then select the proper application to open that type of file.

 

[skiff]

I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about! What "other" option do I select"?

And further, what "proper application" do I select to open what type of file?

Are you guys trying to help me or what?

 

[Aniej]

I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about! What "other" option do I select"?

And further, what "proper application" do I select to open what type of file?

Are you guys trying to help me or what?

Stop being so rude dude. Both Wildcowboy and mad jew gave you perfect advice, not to mention they are two of the most, if not the most helpful people I have found on this site.

 

[someguy]

I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about! What "other" option do I select"?

And further, what "proper application" do I select to open what type of file?

Are you guys trying to help me or what?

You select the "other" option and then select the proper application to open that type of file.

Quoted to force the OP to read this post again.

No offense, but it isn't that difficult to understand. You obviously see the "Other..." option, so click it. You're half way there!

Next, in the window that magically appears on your screen, choose the application you would LIKE to have open the file type in question from this point on.

 

[WildCowboy]

I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about! What "other" option do I select"?

And further, what "proper application" do I select to open what type of file?

Are you guys trying to help me or what?

Okay, calm down...of course we're trying to help you.

The vast majority of filetypes have a default application associated with them on your Mac. These should open with no problem. On many of these, you can go to the "Open with" option as you mentioned in one of your previous posts and you'll usually see a list of other programs that can handle that type of file.

For example, Preview might be your default program for opening JPEG files. Simply double clicking on a JPEG will launch Preview and open the file. But if you go to the "Open with" menu, you will likely see other options, such as Photoshop, Safari, etc. In addition, there is the "Other..." option that you mention, in case you want to use yet another program to open the file...a program that OS X doesn't really recognize as being able to open that filetype properly.

The situation you are describing in your original post is one in which you have a filetype that your computer doesn't know what to use in opening it. Because OS X doesn't know what to do with it, there is no default application listed, and there are no alternatives listed. In this case, it will only give you the "Other..." option. This only happens very rarely in my experience, and most often with filetypes I know to not be compatible with any of my applications, but I want to open them in a text editor to get a text string or something out of them for some other use.

So if you know what application you want to use to open this "unknown" file type, you would select the "Other..." option from the "Open with" menu and then select the application. If you don't know what application to use for the file, you need to find out more information about the file and what would be used to open it. We can often help you with that, but we need specifics about what types of files they are.

 

[ravenvii]

If you don't know how to use/open it, then you have no business messing with Dupseek. It requires you make a install through the commandline. It is a commandline application.

If you, however, are familiar with the commandline and are familiar with how to install applications via the commandline, then the Terminal is your access to OS X's commandline. That is all I will (and need) to tell you.