Month: November 2015

Mini review: Choice of the Deathless for iOS

Choice of the Deathless for iOS by Choice of Games is an interesting interactive book. Not the type where you roll dice, but the kind where you shape and make real choices for the main character. Not “Do you go up the stairs or to the next room first?” choices, but rather choices between alternatives like “Be silent and nod, even though you disagree”, or “Proclaim your honest and enthusiastic support”.

The story is set in a parallel universe where you play the role of a Crafts/man/woman/person, i.e. a sorcerer of sorts, working at a medium sized firm, dealing with demons and gods – a line of work which seems to be more similar to working as a lawyer than being Gandalf.

I am not a fan of “Choose your own adventure” type books, but this I like. Choice of the Deathless uses the strengths of written fiction, rather than trying to emulate a computer game. Choices are not easily categorized into “good” or “evil/bad”. They represent choosing one alternative and discarding others. And there is no looking back… unless you read the book again 🙂

I have not finished the book but am a few chapters in, but I do not think my opinion regrding the experience will change, at least not for the worse I hope.

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Use Choosy.app to interactively choose which app to use to open any file

I have been using Choosy for a very long time (a quick search through my email revealed that I started using the beta in 2008 and bought my license in 2009).

Today I discovered a way of using Choosy to pop up a selector for any file type.

Select between opening a PDF file in Preview.app or Skim.app

Some time ago I added a rule to Choosy that gave me the option to edit a local .html file using Sublime Text in addition to selecting a web browser to open it in.

Rule for adding Sublime Text to browser selection when opening a local HTML file

Here is how to do it:

  1. Create an alias of ~/Library/PreferencePanes/Choosy.prefPane/Contents/Resources/Choosy.app (if you have installed Choosy all users remove the initial ~) and put it in your Applications folder.
  2. Create a rule in Choosy in the advanced tab
  3. Set the rule trigger to require that all the following conditions are true:
    • Web address begins with file://
    • Web address ends with <file extension> (replace <file extension> with the file extension of your choosing, e.g. pdf).
  4. Set the action to be “Promt to select from these browsers…”
  5. Select the applications you want to be able to choose from (they need not be browsers).
  6. In Finder right click a file that has the extension you just created a rule for, choose Get Info and change the Open with application to the Choosy.app alias you added to your Applications folder.
  7. Click “Change All...” so that all files with that extension are affected.

Thats it! Now when you click a file with that extension, it will open in Choosy, which in turn will show you the app selection popup. Below is a screenshot of my PDF rule:

Rule for opening a PDF file in Preview.app or Skim.app