Working between the Terminal and Finder Environments

Here are a set of tips to facilitate your work between the Terminal and Finder environments in Mac OS X.

Note: these tips are intended for use in unusual circumstances where interaction between Terminal and Finder are continually occurring. In most situations we tend to work exclusively in one environment at a time and will not need these tricks.

• Terminal to Finder Interactions:

• In the Terminal the 'open' command followed by a file or directory will open the item in the Finder. If the item is a file it will open it with its corresponding application.

  Examples:

  > open ~

  Opens the home directory in the Finder.

  > open ~/Desktop/dojos.pdf

  Opens dojos.pdf in the Finder with the Preview application

  > open -a Acrobat\ Reader\ 5.0 ~/Desktop/dojos.pdf

  Opens dojos.pdf in the Finder with the Acrobat Reader application

• Finder to Terminal Interactions:

• Dragging any item to the Terminal prompt will write that item (including its path) to the command line.

  Examples:

  > emacs <<drag the file from the Finder now>><return>

  Will open the file with emacs. The Finder sends the file name and file's path to the Terminal so you do not have to type the path

Date Created: 2002-05-11 11:27:44 Date Last Modified: 2002-05-11 11:49:25