Open Files from Command Line on OS X
I'm as much of a fan of application UIs as anyone else but I'm finding myself working more and more from the command line lately. Much of that is becoming obsessed with media manipulation but I'm forcing myself to use less UIs so that I can understand what's under the hood of my favorite utilities.
One common case for running any app is opening an existing file, like an HTML file in a browser or a document in Pages. To open a file on Mac OS X from the command line, type the following:
open portrait.png
The above does not specify an app to open the given file in -- the default app for that file type will be used. To open a file in a specific app, use the -a argument:
open -a /Applications/Firefox.app portrait.png
You can also open a URL directly from the command line:
open https://davidwalsh.name/
You'd expect opening a file from command line to be easy and I'm happy to confirm to you that it is.
![39 Shirts – Leaving Mozilla]()
In 2001 I had just graduated from a small town high school and headed off to a small town college. I found myself in the quaint computer lab where the substandard computers featured two browsers: Internet Explorer and Mozilla. It was this lab where I fell...
![Create a Sheen Logo Effect with CSS]()
I was inspired when I first saw Addy Osmani's original ShineTime blog post. The hover sheen effect is simple but awesome. When I started my blog redesign, I really wanted to use a sheen effect with my logo. Using two HTML elements and...
![WordPress-Style Comment Controls Using MooTools or jQuery]()
WordPress has a nice little effect on the Admin Dashboard where it shows and hides the comment control links when you mouseover and mouseout of the record's container. Here's how to achieve that effect using MooTools or jQuery.
The XHTML
Notice that we place the links into...
![9 Mind-Blowing Canvas Demos]()
The <canvas> element has been a revelation for the visual experts among our ranks. Canvas provides the means for incredible and efficient animations with the added bonus of no Flash; these developers can flash their awesome JavaScript skills instead. Here are nine unbelievable canvas demos that...
I was just wondering how to do this, thanks!
When you use
-a, you don’t need to write the path.…would do the same. :)
The
-ahandler is great when you want to open some program one doesn’t really know (eg remember) exactly where it is.Like:
// that one is in /System/Library/CoreServices