First of all, open URL: I'm used to clicking on a URL in a text and go to that URL in a webbrowser.
For this there is "Open URL" in the Services menu, look at this hint to assign a shortcut to it: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040416191600412
It's also easy to make a custom command to open the selected URL. I put one inside my Text bundle. Here's the entire thing:
open "$TM_SELECTED_TEXT"
Both of these solutions do require the URL to be selected first. A version that didn't require that (i.e. you could simply place the caret inside the URL) would be nice, but a bit more work.
Thanks for both hints! However, I still prefer to have a "Open URL" in a contextual menu, for two reasons: 1. I can still use it without assigning a shortcut key (I admit that I probably am a minority, given TextMate heavily key-based operation, but I do like to use my mouse) 2. I think it is less clumsy then the other options, e.g. (a) hack /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/Info.plist (as the macosxhints suggests; I don't mind hacking /Library, but DO mind hacking /System). (b) Install ICeCoffEE (which provides system-wide ⌘-click behaviour, but forces to install Application Enhancer (APE)) (c) Forces me to first select the URL. 3. It is in-line with other Editors, like Apple's TextEdit, Apple's Stickies, BareBones' BBEdit, TheCodingMonkeys' SubEthaEdit, TeXShop, -- in short most other editors I know of :-)
As a side-note: This is what the readme of ICeCoffEE told on this subject:
Apple has provided ⌘-click URL opening in Mac OS X 10.2 and later in two places.
Apple’s Multilingual Text Editor (MLTE) service lets you ⌘-click URLs to open them. Apple’s FileMaker Pro 7 is an example of an application which uses MLTE.
Terminal lets you use ⌘-double-click URLs to open them.
I'm fine with either way (context menu with "Open URL", ⌘-click or ⌘-double-click); alternatively, I recommend that TextMate does not underline URL's if it does not threat them special -- I found it utterly confusing that I got a visual clue that they were special, but could not act upon that.
Regards, Freek