Nomulous Blog

Finder File Menu: Return = Open

Sometimes I find myself very frustrated with even the smallest of UI annoyances, and with this little trick I discovered, I just fix them.

Requirements:

1. A computer running Mac OS X

2. A copy of the Apple Developer Tools (XCode, etc.)

3. Some inclination as to what the hell you are doing.

All you really have to do is open an Application’s folder (by ctrl-clicking on it and selecting “Show Package Contents”, navigate to Contents -> Resources,  find the appropriate .nib file, and open it with Interface Builder.app. Once that’s done, edit the file to your needs and save. Isn’t that easy?

As an example, I’ll go through the process of giving the Finder’s ‘Open’ menu item the Return keyboard shortcut. Normally this would be possible just by creating a new entry in System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts, but unfortunately Apple doesn’t let us use a single-key as a shortcut, (although something like cmd-Return would work).

Let’s start by finding the Finder in /System/Library/CoreServices/. Control-click on Finder.app and select Show Package Contents, giving you a new Finder window.

Now open Contents then Resources. Since my computer is in English, I opened English.lproj (sometimes called en.lproj in other apps). Then find the item Menus.nib. Although on a normal application we could just open it, since the Finder is located in /System we’ll have to copy it somewhere else, edit it there, and then copy it back. So drag Menus.nib to your desktop, and then open it. (You might want to duplicate the .nib before editing it, just to have a backup somewhere.)

Click the File menu item you’ll see (in the Tiger menu bar style), and select ‘Open’. Bring up the Attributes Inspector (cmd-1 or through the Window menu). From there you can edit or clear the keyboard equivalent, just select the box and press Return!

Now save it, drag the Menus.nib file from your Desktop back into the English.lproj folder, authenticate with an administrator username and password, and Relaunch the Finder. Congratulations, you now have your own custom Finder.app.

Feel free to play around with this trick as much as you like, and let me know if you do anything cool with it. I have been for a while, and nothing terrible has happened to me yet. That having been said, I take no responsibility for any unknown dark powers you may evoke whilst exploring the unfathomable inner depths of your computer. Watch out for Balrogs.