Recently, I was using my computer at work, as you do, and a thought occurred to me:
I know this is weird, but I wish there was a way to open links from *just one application* on my computer in a browser that isn't my default
— Michael Gabriel (@Auhim) October 24, 2014Before explaining my use case, I just assumed it was odd. But then:
@chrismize Ha! That's my exact scenario. I specifically want Tweetbot to open links in Safari because I do personal there, work in Chrome.
— Michael Gabriel (@Auhim) October 24, 2014Another friend mentioned Choosy, but I looked into it and it seemed like hitting a tiny nail with a massive for-pay hammer-shooting cannon.
After looking for alternatives and not finding one, I decided to write one.
I ended up going with AppleScript, which I hadn't touched in a while, because it's simple, tends to have all kinds of hooks into applications and system events, and it seemed like this was exactly the kind of thing it was made for. In the end, it didn't take long once I actually started, though wrestling with AppleScript's very non-programming-language like vernacular was odd–I haven't done anything notable in AppleScript since I messed around with it for some simple tools back when OS X 10.4 (Tiger) was the new hotness.
After I got it working perfectly for a day on my work machine (running Mavericks), I tried it out at home (where I don't need it, as I do all my browsing in one browser) running Yosemite and found a small headache. Still, I've found a workaround so the tool still works after a bit more effort for setup.
So, on that note, here's the tool with my code, some commentary, and instructions on how to download mine, as well as to re-create it or customize it to your liking: