Loading TW in specific browser on MS-Windows??

[David Masterson]

Anyone know of a trick such that I could set my TWs to be loaded by FF v3.6 whereas my default browser would be FF v17.0?

[Scott Simmons]

I haven't tried this, but you may be able to go into the Windows File Associations and create a custom file extension (say, .TW) that would be associated with the FF 3.6 executable.  Then you could rename your TiddlyWikis from (example:) myTiddlyWiki.html to myTiddlyWiki.tw.  Double-clicking a .tw file should then open in in FF 3.6.

[David Masterson]

Hmmm. Interesting idea -- where are the Windows File Associations stored (how do I access them)?

[Scott Simmons]

You can view and edit Windows file associations via the Control Panel.  In WinVista/7/8, you should find them here:

Control Panel » Default Programs » File Associations

Although it may be easier to just do this:

1. Rename one of your TiddlyWikis from .html to .tw.
2. Right-click on the file and choose "Open With »" from the context menu, then "Choose Default Program...".
3. Make sure "Always use the selected program to open this type of file" is checked.
4. Click "Browse" to locate and select the version of Firefox you want to use to open TiddlyWikis.  (Be sure to select the firefox.exe executable.)
5. Click "OK" to open the .tw.
6. Now all your .TW files should open with your preferred version of Firefox.

----

Once you asked the question, I liked the idea so much I stole it for myself.  :)  My browser of choice is Maxthon (http://www.maxthon.com/), but, like Firefox, the current version isn't as TiddlyWiki-friendly as an older version I keep around just several old-school reasons (including TiddlyWiking).  So I took my own advice and renamed a couple of TWs I keep on my desktop — my dream journal went from dreams.html to dreams.tw — so that I can quickly and easily open them in the older version of Maxthon, even though the newer version is my default browser.

I haven't done this with all my TiddlyWikis, though.  Several of them are interlinked, and I don't want to invest the time in hunting down and updating the links just now.  Plus, I occasionally share some of them and post them on the web, and I'm not convinced I'd want to rename them to .HTML files every time I do so.

[Scott Simmons]

Here's a great (and quick) video on File Associations in Windows 7 and 8:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBNG-wMAOiE

[Kriss]

I still use PRISM for all of my TWs. It is a discontinued project from mozilla.

(in my case, my webbrowser runs sandboxed (under sandboxie) and therefore saving is disabled by definition. Using prism avoids the forced sandbox)

I am not sure how prism works exactly or what FF version it uses, but I can keep updating my firefox webbrowser and the TWs keep functioning perfectly.

(I use TW versions 2.6.2 and 2.6.5 - have not tested on 2.7)

Prism has the added advantages that (1) it starts faster, (2) you create a direct link to a file (like a file/program, not like a web-bookmark) and (3) that you don't have the normal browser interface, which means extra pixel real-estate for your TW.

The solution proposed by Scott Simmons will work as too.

for some light on this go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-which-programs-Windows-uses-by-default

Beware that you will have to have both FF versions installed; I don't know whether these might give conflicts...

[David Masterson]

Interesting Scott,

The one issue I see is that I was considering putting all my TWs on Dropbox or a USB stick.  Because of the problems associated with using TWs in the latest versions of FF, I was thinking of putting a portable FFv3.6 on the stick with the TWs.  The problem is that, since the FFv3.6 has not been installed on any system I mount the USB stick on, the association you talk about will not be known (correct?).

An alternative is to create a standard script to do the association.  For instance, create a .CMD file that automatically sends FFv3.6 the associated .HTML file (hopefully not starting a new FF instance).  Done right, the CMD file could be generic and you'd just copy it to any new TW you create.  Theoretically, this should be possible, but I'm more of a Unix/Linux person and, so, not quite sure how to do this in Windows and I'm not sure if standard Windows CMD files are capable of this.

[Scott Simmons]

Hmmm — carrying them around on a USB with FF3.6 could be problematic.  I'm no command-line whiz (liberal arts major here!), but Windows batch files tend to like absolute paths rather than relative paths — and since you can never know the drive letter that might get assigned to a USB drive on different machines, you'd really need your CMD-line launcher to use relative paths.

At which point you may be back to considering whether it's easier to just launch FF from USB, then drag-and-drop the files from the taskbar onto FF.

Here are a couple of links from Lifehacker I bookmarked that I thought might help me with a similar project — though I have to confess, I gave up before I got to the point of getting mine to work properly:

http://lifehacker.com/5310255/use-relative-paths-in-your-batch-files

http://lifehacker.com/399293/create-shortcuts-on-a-usb-drive