FastScripts 2.2.6
I was just trying out the new version of Daniel Jalkut’s FastScripts. It’s a great utility, and I’d buy it right away if my main applications didn’t already have their own script menus with customizable keyboard shortcuts. In fact, it might prove useful in spite of that.
But the reason for this post is to issue kudos where due. There’s a menu item in FastScripts for opening the scripts folder of the current application. Normally, this kind of command will open the folder in the Finder. FastScripts, however, opened the folder in my frontmost Path Finder window. It’s not often that software surprises me in a positive way. It would have taken a single Cocoa call for FastScripts to reveal the folder in the Finder. Instead, it checks if Path Finder is running and, if it is, sends it an Apple event to reveal the file. I like this idea so much that I’ll be implementing it in my own framework.
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Not that I'm using PathFinder myself, but would have expected for this being nothing but a question about which application gets to handle file: URLs.
Path Finder doesn't register to handle URLs. At first I thought FastScripts might just be using the OS's generic "open file" feature. But Path Finder responds to that by opening a new window, whereas with FastScripts it reveals the folder in an existing window. So, although I didn't actually check, I'm pretty sure it's using an Apple event.
Hi Michael - it's a great treat to see my work handed "kudos" in a public arena like this.
You are correct that FastScripts includes special code to better support Path Finder. I don't use Path Finder myself, but a customer who uses both it and FastScripts requested the functionality. I simply make the assumption that if Path Finder is running, the user would rather open in that than in the (possibly also running) Finder.
Like most of the (sometimes surprising) refinements in FastScripts, I can only take credit for writing the code. The best ideas came from my users who, for reasons I cannot understand, choose not to use the utility exactly as I do :)
Thanks again for the kind words,
Daniel
