Open a folder as a Positron project from Finder on macOS as a service or quick action

[andrewheiss]

Currently, when installing Positron on Windows (see here), there's an option to add an "Open with Positron" action to the Windows Explorer directory context menu. This makes it easy to open a folder as a project. Right click on the folder, choose "Open with Positron" and voilà—you're in business.

On macOS this isn't directly possible, and as noted in the page on Rproj files, "There is no true equivalent of this in macOS, sadly"

However, there is a way to add this ability underneath one extra folder level in the right click menu, and many other macOS apps use the same approach to make it easier to open folders in specific applications. I have a full writeup here—here's the quick version:

You can create an Automator Quick Action or Service that will open a selected folder in Finder in Positron:

1. Open Automator.
2. Go to File > New and select "Quick Action"
3. Create a workflow with all these settings (a screenshot of the finished workflow is included below):

   1. Set "Workflow receives current" to "folders" in Finder

   2. Drag the "Run Shell Script" action from the Actions Library to the workflow

   3. Set "Pass input" to "as arguments"

   4. Paste this script into the script area:

      for f in "$@"
      do
          open -a "Positron" "$f"
      done

4. Save it as "Open in Positron" (or whatever else you want)

Here's what it looks like when finished:

Once that's saved, you can right click on any folder in Finder, go to Quick Actions, and open it in Positron:

---

I think that theoretically this ability can be baked into Positron natively. As noted in the full blog post, lots of macOS apps add stuff to the Services menu. Like, I can open a new iTerm2 tab to this folder, or open the folder in DiffMerge, or encrypt/decrypt files with OpenPGP. Those options are all available because I have iTerm2, DiffMerge, and GPG Suite installed.

These services are defined in each app's respective <App Name>.app/Contents/Info.plist file (see Apple's official documentation here, or this example). For instance, DiffMerge has this entry in its Info.plist:

<!-- This gets us on the "Finder | Services ->" menu in the -->
<!-- "Files and Folders" group.  It also gets us at the     -->
<!-- bottom Finder's context menu when you right-click on   -->
<!-- one or more items.                                     -->
<!-- I'm using NSSendTypes rather than NSSendFileTypes      -->
<!-- so that we get directories and so that we appear with  -->
<!-- "Files and Folders" rather than with "Text" grouping.  -->
<key>NSServices</key>
<array>
  <dict>
    <key>NSMenuItem</key>
    <dict>
      <key>default</key>
      <string>Open in DiffMerge</string>
    </dict>
    <key>NSMessage</key>
    <string>openFilesViaService</string>
    <key>NSUserData</key>
    <string>SGDM</string>
    <key>NSPortName</key>
    <string>DiffMerge</string>
    <key>NSRequiredContext</key>
    <dict>
      <key>NSTextContent</key>
      <string>FilePath</string>
    </dict>
    <key>NSSendTypes</key>
    <array>
      <string>NSFilenamesPboardType</string>
    </array>

    <key>NSReturnTypes</key>
    <array/>
  </dict>
</array>

BUT I don't know anything about official macOS development and how to create plist files like this, and I don't know how this all interacts with Electron and its build process.

It could be neat (and help with parity with Windows) if there were a way to add an automatic and native "Open with Positron" service so that people could right click, go to Services, and open folders as projects in Positron.

[juliasilge]

Thank you so much, @andrewheiss, for this and all the other helpful materials you have been sharing on using Positron! 🙌 🏆 🤩

I opened #8614 as an issue for us to track and prioritize this kind of feature.