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Thanks for taking the time to look at this. Before I get started I'd just like to add a precursor to this question: I'm only looking for a solution to the problem outlined, comments such as: "Use Ubuntu!", or "QuickSilver does that" aren't useful to me. Presume that I know what I am on about and have made my software choices for a reason. That said, I could use your help! So without further ado...

Basically I'm looking for a way of defining that all folders inside a certain folder (~/Sites in my case) behave slightly differently than all other folders on the system. So in my case I want all folders to open in finder as normal except for folders that are children of the ~/Sites folder, I want those folders to open in TextMate.

My use case is using Google Quick Search Box to find a folder and then executing the open command, but I'm sure there are other reasons why this kind of functionality might be desirable.

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I don't think Google QSB supports any other action other than open when you press return after selecting a folder. Also, I was unable to set the Open With for a folder using either the Finder or Path Finder. Using the "mate" command in bash on a folder opens it in TextMate. If you could somehow create a script that would open the folder using the "mate" command, I think you would be set. – fideli Dec 30 '09 at 8:22
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Yes. Despite OSX's GUI niceness I find myself at the zsh prompt for the majority of my work. There this kind of thing is extremely easy, and I have various custom scripts to obtain my desired functionality. Really what I was looking for was a way to give QSB some 'smarts' so that I didn't even have to think about about launching through it. It would see a requested folder was in my ~/Sites dir, go "that's a textmate project" and react accordingly with no further user input. As you correctly infer, anything else is less efficient than just doing it in terminal. – i0n Jan 11 '10 at 17:32
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2 Answers

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If you're focused on using QSB you could just create a service for opening a folder in TextMate. And then just navigate to the folder in QSB and use the service. So when you pivot over in QSB instead of choosing "Open" you would choose "Open in TextMate" or whatever you call your Service.

Here's some explanation on how to create a service for Quick Search Box. It's pretty painless and can be done with a simple AppleScript and ThisService which will turn the AppleScript into Service that QSB can see.

You'll need this plugin which will give QSB access to your services.

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Interesting. This looks like it might provide a solution. I'll have a bit of a dig around with this and report my findings. Thanks for the suggestion! – i0n Jan 11 '10 at 17:33
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Quick Answer: If you're running Mac OS X 10.6, download and install MagicLaunch.

Long Answer: Which version of Mac OS X? In versions before 10.6 you can set which program will open a file with just that file but requires you to manually set them to open in a different program. So out of the box you can't set it up how you'd like.

The feature (creator codes) was removed in 10.6 (it relies on file extensions now). There are two utilities that have been released to restore the feature: LaunchCodes and MagicLaunch. MagicLaunch however does provide the ability to change the launching application for a specific folder.

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Hi, thanks for your input! MagicLaunch looks like a great little tool, but unfortunately I don't think it actually does what I need it to do. My objective is to specify different actions for children of a folder nested at a specific point in my file system. As far as I can see (even with custom rules etc) MagicLaunch deals with files and file extension types, not the folders themselves. – i0n Jan 11 '10 at 17:24
@i0n: While not perfect you would have to enable a rule on all the extensions you use. Not a 100% solution but as far as I can tell it's the best available. You can use UTIs as well but that's a ball of wax with razor blades and used needles embedded. – Chealion Jan 11 '10 at 20:20
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