Quick Tip: Setting an Application to Open a Particular Type of File in GoLive
GoLive's Web Settings allow you to associate a particular application with a file extension within the application. When you do this, GoLive will launch that application when you double-click on a file with that extension in GoLive's site window, regardless of the what would normally be launched by the operating system to open that particular file. To take an example, say you always want to launch Photoshop to edit GIF or JPEG files when working in GoLive. Depending on the file type and creator information (Macintosh) or file associations (Windows) it may or may not be Photoshop which gets launched. But this is exactly what the GoLive Web Settings allow you to override, ensuring that every time you double-click a GIF or a JPEG in the site window, you get exactly the behaviour you want.

Step 1:
Open Edit > Web Settings > File Mappings and highlight the extension you wish to associate with a particular application.

Hint: If you are not sure which general mime type the extension you are working with is under, Ctrl/right-click in the File Mappings tab and choose View > Flat from the contextual menu.

 Open File Mappings Tab of Web Settings

Step 2:
Hit the folder icon highlighted in the screenshot above and then navigate to the folder containing the application you want to associate with the file extension. With the application you want highlighted, click on Open in the Select Opener dialogue

 Navigate to the Application Folder

Step 3:
That's it. Done. The Inspector shows you the new internal association. Double-clicking on a GIF file in GoLive will now cause Photoshop to launch and open the file.


 Application Association in Inspector

Step 4:
This isn't really a Step 4 as such, but any time you want to remove the association and return GoLive to the default behaviour governed by the operating system for a file extension, just hit the Clear button and that's the association gone.


Pretty easy, no? But a very useful way to create application-specific associations between a particular type of file and an editing application. You can do this for any file extension and any application. Prefer to edit your stylesheet files in TopStyle? Want to use BBEdit for your custom Javascript libraries? No problem. Its as easy as 1-2-3 in GoLive.