[Jmol-users] opening mol files with Jmol

[Robert B. Grossman]

Title: opening mol files with Jmol

OK, I can successfully force an individual mol file to launch Jmol upon double-clciking.

(1) CONTROL-click on file
(2) Choose Open with ...
(3) Change "Recommended Applications" to "All Applications"
(4) Choose Jmol

However, when I double-click on the file and Jmol is launched, the file does not appear in Jmol.  I have to use the Jmol Open ... command to open the file.

Also, if I then click once on the file and press COMMAND-I (Get info), the default app is now set to Jmol; but if I try to Change all ... so that all mol files open with Jmol, I get an error -10814.  That means "No application in the Launch Services database matches the input criteria."  Rebooting didn't help.  But none of this squares with the information here: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/LaunchServicesConcepts/LSCConcepts/chapter_2_section_5.html .

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that something about the code in Jmol is preventing it from working smoothly with MacOS X.  I've posted a question on the Apple developers' forum.

Back to the plist.  The correct structure of the properties is (I think), according to http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/pdf/tn2013.pdf, as follows:

        <key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key>
        <array>
        <dict>
                  <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
                     <string>MDL Molfile</string>
                    <key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key>
                       <array>
                        <string>mol</string>
                    </array>
                        <key>CFBundleTypeMIMETypes</key>
                        <array>
                        <string>chemical/x-mdl-molfile</string>
                </array>
                        <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
                     <string>Editor</string>
        </dict>
        <dict>
                  <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
                     <string>Text document</string>
                  <key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key>
                       <array>
                        <string>pdb</string>
                    </array>
                        <key>CFBundleTypeMIMETypes</key>
                        <array>
                        <string>chemical/x-pdb</string>
                </array>
                        <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
                     <string>Editor</string>
        </dict>

        </array>

(I'm not sure about the BundleTypeName for PDB files.)  But even after modifying the plist in this way, the system does not recognize Jmol as understanding these files.

By the way, there's an app just for modifying the plist at Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property List Editor.

-- Bob