[TxMt] The file association war

[Jeremy Amos]

On Sep 21, 2006, at 11:08 AM, Allan Odgaard wrote:

> [1] It might actually be, that the system picks the newest one,  
> logically that wouldn’t be a bad assumption, that the newest app  
> which can handle a document type, is the one the user wants to use  
> for that document type -- but for people trying out new software,  
> it would almost always be a bad heuristic.

I believe it is a FILO stack - so the newest does take precedence  
(though I've done zero research to back it up), though I believe the  
document creator code and file type flags are more heavily weighted  
than document extensions.

I generally avoid the file association war entirely, and do one of  
two things when opening documents for which I have more than one editor:

1) open from within the app
2) drag & drop - drag the document icon to the app icon. (the latter  
is the one I use most often).

Frankly, I think file associations will always be problematic for non- 
proprietary documents (regardless of platform), but a usable  
interface for the LaunchServices database would be nice to have.