Some times ago,
using Leopard, I got tired of having to open an application, create a
new file, select where I want it to go, and close the application — just
to create a damn new file. I mean, can’t we just have a “New document”
contextual menu, just as in Windows, Gnome, KDE, or any decent
environment ? Mac users say that eventually, the need for it disappears
— just as the need to have “folders first” in the Finder goes off with
time and practice. Well, I must agree I can live without “folder first”.
But a “New document” menu is a requirement for me.
I didn’t find anything on the Web : forum members are quicker to answer “that’s the way OS X is made, get used to it” than suggesting a solution. I wasn’t aware of NuFile at this time, and I wanted to learn how to create a plugin with CoreFoundation. So I made it myself.
NewDocumentPlugIn adds a “New document” contextual menu to the Finder. You can thus create easily new documents without opening the associated application. It is meant to be simple yet customizable : you can easily add your own templates, just drop an empty file of the wanted type in the “Templates” folder of the plugin. And it is localized in English and French: you can add localizations for the contextual menu labels and for the document names if wanted.
The neat
feature that I didn’t see anywhere else is filename highlighting :
when you create a new document, the document name is highlighted, in
order to customize the name without superfluous keystroke (ensure that
AppleScript GUI Scripting is enabled for this).
On the technical side, the plugin is written in C, using the CoreFoundation API — and some bits of Carbon for file manipulation. I could have integrated Cocoa code in there (easier to write and to maintain), but keeping it C-only reduce overheight. Guaranteed without memory leaks. Oh, and it uses AppleScript and GUI Scripting for the “filename highlighting” feature : there is some nice code to execute an AppleScript file from a Carbon program.
The plugin is hosted on Google Code and is Open-Source (MIT Licence). Please read it, recompile it, fork it, whatever you want.
Download NewDocumentPlugin (Mac OS 10.4 to 10.5, 700
Ko)
See the project page on
GoogleCode
Kudos
J’écris des sites web, des logiciels, des applications mobiles. Vous me trouverez essentiellement sur ce blog, mais aussi sur Mastodon, parmi les Codeurs en Liberté, ou en haut d’une colline du nord-est de Paris.