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Currently we have either Preview or Acrobat opening pdf documents by default.

I'm trying to see what I can do to automatically associate pdf documents with a new app called Nitro on the command line.   Can anyone point me in the direction?

You'll want to look at LSHandlers. These are what associate a file type/extension to an app. The file it updates is "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist". I just installed Acrobat and a new handler was added after I launched it and set the app as the default for PDFs. There might be others you'll need to add for Nitro so try it on a clean/new build and see how you go. You can add to the existing plist or if you're deploying on a new build you can pretty much just delete the file and write out a new one. I do have some shell script that I use to add a bunch of handlers for Outlook and Chrome.

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist

Amongst all the ones I already have set this one was added...

Dict { LSHandlerContentType = com.adobe.pdf LSHandlerRoleAll = com.adobe.reader LSHandlerPreferredVersions = Dict { LSHandlerRoleAll = - } }

I generally find that a log out/in (or reboot) is needed to reload the handlers but there is also a command you can run but I find that that doesn't always work. From memory the command you need to "lsregisters".

You'll want to look at LSHandlers. These are what associate a file type/extension to an app. The file it updates is "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist". I just installed Acrobat and a new handler was added after I launched it and set the app as the default for PDFs. There might be others you'll need to add for Nitro so try it on a clean/new build and see how you go. You can add to the existing plist or if you're deploying on a new build you can pretty much just delete the file and write out a new one. I do have some shell script that I use to add a bunch of handlers for Outlook and Chrome.

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist

Amongst all the ones I already have set this one was added...

Dict { LSHandlerContentType = com.adobe.pdf LSHandlerRoleAll = com.adobe.reader LSHandlerPreferredVersions = Dict { LSHandlerRoleAll = - } }

I generally find that a log out/in (or reboot) is needed to reload the handlers but there is also a command you can run but I find that that doesn't always work. From memory the command you need to "lsregisters".


Thanks @shannon_pasto - would you mind sharing one of those scripts for adding the handler?

sure. This is what I use to set Chrome as the default browser. Hopefully you can work out your URLHandlers and the app bundle identifier...

 

#!/bin/sh CurrentlyLoggedInUser=$(/usr/bin/stat -f %Su /dev/console) setLSHandler() { # function to setup any default apps, LSHandlerURLScheme or LSHandlerContentType # usage: setLSHandler LSHandlerURLScheme mailto com.microsoft.outlook _lsHandlerType="${1}" _lsHandler="${2}" _appID="${3}" sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :LSHandlers:0 dict" "${LSfile}" sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :LSHandlers:0:${_lsHandlerType} string ${_lsHandler}" "${LSfile}" sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :LSHandlers:0:LSHandlerRoleAll string ${_appID}" "${LSfile}" sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :LSHandlers:0:LSHandlerPreferredVersions dict" "${LSfile}" sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :LSHandlers:0:LSHandlerPreferredVersions:LSHandlerRoleAll string -" "${LSfile}" unset _lsHandlerType unset _lsHandler unset _appID } # set up for LaunchServices configuration LSfile="/Users/${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist" LSdir=$(dirname "${LSfile}") if [ ! -d "${LSdir}" ]; then /bin/echo "Creating the LaunchServces path" sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /bin/mkdir "${LSdir}" fi # create then LS Handler file /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :LSHandlers array" "${LSfile}" >/dev/null 2>&1 /bin/echo "Setting Google Chrome as the default browser" URLhandlers=(public.url public.html public.xhtml http https) URLhandlerCount=$(( ${#URLhandlers[@]} - 1 )) i=0 while [ $i -le "${URLhandlerCount}" ]; do setLSHandler "LSHandlerURLScheme" "${URLhandlers[$i]}" "com.google.Chrome" i=$(( i + 1 )) done sudo -u "${CurrentlyLoggedInUser}" /usr/bin/plutil -convert binary1 "${LSfile}" exit 0

 

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers,

Shannon

Thanks - there's some good stuff in that.  Much appreciated

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