Openning a HTML file in the default browser

You don't need to know what the default browser is - the system already knows that, so let it do the hard work:

tell application "Finder" to open file ("HD:path:to:your.html")

The Finder will identify the file as a HTML file, lookup the default application for that file type and open it accordingly.

You set your default application for opening HTML files to TextEdit. Most users won't do that. Most will have Safari (the default for OS X), or FireFox.

You can set the default from within Finder: click on the file, and then press command-I to see the info pane. Where it says "Open with:" in the pane, select the app, and click the Change All... button to apply it to all files of that type.

You can also access the launch services property list to do the same thing programmatically.

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist is a property list like any other.

Open yours, and you'll see that your entry for LSHandlerContentType = public.html is something like com.apple.textedit. Changing it (by manually modifying the XML, or using Apple APIs), to com.apple.safari will go back to the default behavior.

Not /Library/Preferences, ~/Library/Preferences (your home directory)

Hello Mowri,

You may use 'open location' command in Standard Additions to open local html file in default browser.
Something like this.

--SCRIPT
set a to choose file -- choose local html file
set p to a's POSIX path
--set furl to "file://localhost" & p -- w/o percent escape for uri (OK ?) [1]
--set furl to "file:" & p -- w/o percent escape for uri (OK ?) [1]
set furl to uri_file(p) -- w/ percent escape for uri
open location furl
on uri_file(p)
 set sh to "/bin/echo -n " & quoted form of p & " | perl -MURI::file -lne 'print URI::file->new($_);'"
 do shell script sh
end uri_file
(*
 [1] If unescaped version of file uri is accepted by 'open location', you'd not need uri_file() handler.
*)
--END OF SCRIPT

As for opening new tab, it would be done by browser's setting for opening new url, I'd guess.

Cheers,
H

Hello Mowri,

Apparently html files are associated with TextEdit.app in your environment.
It means your default browser IS TextEdit in a sense...

Does TextEdit.app has such setting in its preferences?
Or are you using something like RCDefaultApp [1] that modifies standard associations between file and application?

If there's no apparent reason for such association, I'd rebuild launch services database by using Onyx [2] or lsregister command explained in, e.g., [3].

Of course you may open a file by specified application by using open(1) command with -a or -b option [4] (provided that you know the application).
However, fixing the undesired association is the way to go, I'd think.

Good luck,
H

cf.
[1] RCDefaultApp
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/index.html

[2] Onyx
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english/apps.html

[3] How to rebuild the LaunchServices database
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486

[4] open(1)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/open.1.h tml

This script opens a local page before printing the page.

on open dropped_items
-- Write a message into the event log.
log " --- Starting on " & ((current date) as string) & " --- "
-- set see to alias "Macintosh-HD:Users:mac:Desktop:app.html"
-- set dropped_items to {see}

set the_app to "Safari"


repeat with dropped_item_ref in dropped_items
--set UrlBase to "xzzx FILE://" & POSIX path of dropped_item_ref
--display dialog UrlBase

-- Activate
activate application the_app

-- Open the URL
tell application the_app
open dropped_item_ref
-- print dropped_item_ref
tell application "System Events"
tell process the_app
delay 3
-- click menu item "Print..." of menu "File" of menu bar 1
keystroke "p" using command down
delay 1
keystroke return
delay 10
keystroke "w" using command down

end tell
end tell

--quit
end tell

end repeat
end open