How to associate the ".exe" extension to be opened with Mono?

Question

I want to asssociate the .exe file extension to Mono (don't care about wine).

Apparently, when using Finder's GUI, only .app files (application bundles) can be selected. But the Mono executable (/Libraries/Frameworks/Mono.Framework/Current/bin/mono) is no such bundle.

I tried some AppleScript

on run this_file
 do shell script "mono this_file &"
end run

but Finder's GUI still doesn't allow to associate that with .exe's.

How to associate a specific file extension to a command-line application in Mac OS X?

Answer 1

Using Automator to save the following as an Application works fine for me, also for new files:

1. Start Automator
2. In "Choose a template for your workflow" choose "Application"
3. Drag the action "Run Shell Script" into the workflow in the pane at the right
4. Change "Pass input" from "to stdin" into "as arguments"

5. Replace echo "$f" with mono "$f" &. So:

   for f in "$@"
   do
     mono "$f" &
   done
   

6. Save (as an Application)
7. Use Finder to associate any file extension with this new application (like: hit Cmd-I, or right-click » Get Info, select the application and then choose "Change all")

I have not tested step 5 with mono, but with the following, which also uses the command line though:

for f in "$@"
do
  open -a /Applications/TextEdit.app/ "$f"
done

(I am not an AppleScript expert.)

Answer 2

Follow the steps above but use this instead:

for f in "$@"
do
 mono $f &
done