Finder - Get Info - changing "Open With"

In the Finder, I accidentally changed the default application specified to open a .nib file. How do I change it back to <NONE>. It is a system file.
Powerbook G4 Titanium (DVI) Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Since replacing the file had no effect, it would seem that you made the change apply to all ".nib" files, either by clicking the "Change all" button in "Get Info", or by agreeing to do this in a warning dialogue. One place these settings are stored is in the "com.apple.LaunchServices.plist" file in each user's "~/Library/Preferences" folder.
No guarantees, but try launching "/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app" and entering the three commands below. The method depends on a command that isn't installed by default but will likely be present if you have been keeping up with your Apple updates and have left the contents of '/Library/Receipts' alone. It also assumes that the nightly maintenance tasks have been allowed to run:<pre>a='-c "Delete LSPrefsBindings:E\:nib" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist'
sh -c "`locate PlistBuddy |xargs ls -lt |head -1 |sed 's/.* $[^ ]*PlistBuddy$/\1/'` $a"
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'</pre>You could also use 'plutil' to convert the file to "xml" format and edit the file with a text editor. The GUI way would be to install the "X Code Tools" and use "Plist Editor.app" to edit your user's "com.apple.LaunchServices.plist" file. Or to simpy remove the plist file, although this will remove all custom "Change all" assignments of applications for file types (actually, for this reason, it might be a good idea to back up the file first before trying the commands above).

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Back up all data.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
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Triple-click the following line to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -Rh $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2> /dev/null
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Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
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The first step should give you usable permissions in your home folder. This step will restore special attributes set by OS X on some user folders to protect them from unintended deletion or renaming. You can skip this step if you don't consider that protection to be necessary.
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I have a small but annoying problem that appears in Leopard 10.5.2 (been there since original 10.5.0 install) that I have tried to troubleshoot but can't solve.
The problem is:
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However, once I do that, (click Change All, then Continue button), the old, wrong application name jumps back the Open With slot! So the new, correct application choice doesn't "stick".
Oddly enough, it sort of DOES work, because if I then re-click in the Open With slot, although the old, the wrong application is back listed again, if I look up above that name, then my actual desired application is listed in a list, and it has the word (Default) beside it.
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Well, I tried rebuilding the Launch services with the command listed but still no luck. After having no luck with that and deleting caches, etc....I also, went to my home (user) directory and in Preferences, I deleted the com.apple.launchservices.plist file. I restarted and checked and still the same result.
Also, I want to emphasize again that the file type I am discussing DOES actually launch with the correct application. (Cubase files in my example).
But it is just annoying that ALL of my Cubase files display the Pro Tools application icon, and in Get Info they are listed to open with Pro Tools. But they actually do launch Cubase if double clicked.
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Wade

"Open with" / Get Info / Change All not working

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http://www.titanium.free.fr
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FINDER: "Get Info" - Window not opening / not working

Hi All,
I am kinda lost. Since upgrading to 10.6.4, I no longer can open "Get Info" neither through the context menu not through key [cmd+I].
This is in Finder only. On Application Level (iTunes e.g.) it works. I have
checked permissions, they're good. I also have tried another user account,
same issue here. So it's system wide. Is there a known issue with this? I
cannot find it. It is not listed anywhere.
In the Console I can find the following:
===========================================================================
12/10/2010 14:15:15 Finder[293] unable to find nib named: InfoWindowMoreInfoView in bundle path: (null)
12/10/2010 14:15:15 Finder[293] HIToolbox: ignoring exception '-[NSViewController loadView] could not load the "InfoWindowMoreInfoView" nib.' that raised inside Carbon event dispatch
===========================================================================
Any Ideas?
Message was edited by: tlehmann (vmware)

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Since the issue is systemwide, then, you may be able to repair this with the The 10.6.4 Combo Update This is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before.
Remember to Verify Disk before update and repair permissions after update from /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
-mj

How to change "open with" defaults via command line?!?

folks,
i know that if i get info on a file -- in this case, a filemaker 5.5 file -- i can choose the default "open with" settings and apply those settings to all files of that kind. see the attached image for what i mean.
but how do i do that via the command line?
thus far, here's what i've got: i know that i can open a document called "scrubbing shell.sh" on my desktop WITH either MS Word of TextEdit by calling:
open -a textedit /Users/david/Desktop/scrubbing-shell.sh
or
open -a Microsoft\ Word /Users/david/Desktop/scrubbing-shell.sh
no sweat. BUT....how do i set the defaults so that it ALWAYS opens with that app in the future when double-clicking via the GUI?
many thanks, ya'll!
david koff
associate systems admin
the j. paul getty trust
dkoff AT getty DOT edu

Hi David,
   OK, I investigated the new format and treatment. It appears that the first entry in the property list file that matches the file being opened wins. The Finder may still honor the new format; when I moved my old Panther file into Tiger it seemed to work. However, in other ways, the Finder doesn't recognize the old format, which is the format of the FileMaker entries you posted.
   The Finder puts all of the new format entries at the beginning of the property list file. If you change a preference that was controlled by an old format entry, the Finder won't edit that entry. What it will do is to create a new entry in the new format closer to the beginning of the file than any of the old-format entries. SInce the new entry comes first, the old one doesn't apply. If you then edit the preference and change it back to what it was before, the Finder will edit the new entry. Consider the following sequence of events and commands:
% cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices_copy.plist
I change all GIF files to be opened by GraphicConverter instead of Preview, which is an old setting in the old format.
% plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
% diff --text ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices_copy.plist
404,409d403
<      <dict>
<         <key>LSHandlerContentType</key>
<         <string>com.compuserve.gif</string>
<         <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
<         <string>com.lemkesoft.graphicconverter</string>
<      </dict>
Then I change all the GIF files to be opened by Preview again.
% plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
% cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices_copy2.plist
% diff --text ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices_copy.plist
404,409d403
<       <dict>
<          <key>LSHandlerContentType</key>
<          <string>com.compuserve.gif</string>
<          <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
<          <string>com.apple.preview</string>
<       </dict>
% diff --text ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices_copy2.plist
408c408
<          <string>com.apple.preview</string>
          <string>com.lemkesoft.graphicconverter</string>
   Note that I had to change the file to text after every change because the Finder converted the file to binary format every time it edited it. I didn't have to logout or reboot; the property list file change less than a second after the preference was set. I'm guessing that because you were just looking at the old-format entry, you missed the real changes to your property list file. Did it change from text to binary format? Try the command line tools that I used above.
   Note that this means that it matters where you put your entries in the property list file if you edit it.
Gary
~~~~
   There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those
   who understand binary numbers and those who don't.

Finder - Get Info - changing "Open With"

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