Highlighted URLs

When displaying articles in the message view, Pineapple News will locate and identify various types of URLs, highlight them in customizable colors, and turn them into clickable links. When clicked, the program will launch the URL in whatever program Mac OS X thinks is appropriate. Also, you can right-click or control-click on a link to bring up the context menu, then select “Copy,” which will copy the URL text to the clipboard.

URL highlight colors are always visible, but launching URLs in handler apps is a premium feature that is only available if you’ve registered the program.

URL types recognized

URL Type Examples
  
E-Mailmailto:user@domain.org   tom@hydra.net
Filefile:///Volumes/Macintosh%20HD/somefile.ext
FTPftp://ftp.beep.org/file.ext   ftp.what.net
HTTPhttp://www.site.com/   www.site.com
HTTPShttps://www.bank.com/account_info.html
MMSmms://stream.site.org/streaming.url
Newsnews:alt.internet.talk.haven   <msgid7789@domain.org>
RTSPrtsp://swelter.org/streaming.url
Telnettelnet://telnet.domain.org:7000

Setting up handler apps

When you click on a URL link, it is launched in a handler app. For example, when you click on an http: link, it might open in Safari. You may find yourself disappointed in the particular app that was chosen, and wish you could assign a different one. Pineapple News has no control over what handler apps are used. That is a function of Mac OS X.

Although Mac OS X maintains app-to-URL associations, it does not make it easy for you to edit them. It’s probably easiest to bypass the operating system’s poor editing abilities altogether, and go with a third-party solution. I recommend RCDefaultApp, which is well-designed, easy to use, and free.

Since Pineapple News is a newsreader, you will no doubt be tempted to set it up to handle news: URLs. Unfortunately, as of this writing, it is not capable of handling any kind of URLs whatsoever. It’s something I hope to implement in the not-too-distant future, though.

Customizing colors

If you don’t like the default URL colors, you can set your own. Select the Pineapple News application menu, then “Preferences ...” The preferences window will open. Select the tab labeled “Message Colors.” Click on one of the color wells to bring up the color picker window, which allows you to specify a new color for that particular URL type.

Note that the RTSP and MMS URL types don’t have their own unique colors. Both types use the “Stream” color.

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