if you find annoying just dragging an Icon to open the application,
well , it's hard to help you with that kind of mentality
I found more annoying reading your COMPLAINTS about every little thing
that the Macintosh OS doesn't do, since you are ALWAYS comparing it to the Modern Macs,
or Windows 7.

You must ALWAYS keep in mind that the Classic Mac OS (system 6 to OS 9)
are OLD Operating Systems and will Never work as a Modern XP or Mac OS X,
and these old OS's have limited features and that's part of the beauty of them,

sorry if I'm being rude, but I think you forget the fact that we are dealing with old
Mac Operating systems. that don't have ALL the bells and whistles of Windows7.

Nice to meet you too.

IIRIC; the application should be installed properly in order to have this functionality. That way the installer should register the associated file types w the system. At least you should run the application on it's own a couple of times so the system 'recognizes' it. I *think* you can also set which application handles which file types in the 'PC Exchange'-panel, based on file type names…

A temporary method is to use FileTyper to change the creator code of the file (and type if needed). I set up many FileTyper drop-apps for JPG, TIFF etc. so they would open in JPGVIEW or Photoshop. It works well, but is an extra step in the process. I have PC Exchange disabled, as I found it did more harm than good. There are 2 or 3 freeware apps that allow you to select the default application for certain filetypes (and of course PC Exchange/File Exchange). I believe the one I used was called DefaultApp, or AppDefault, but don't quote me on that.

Rebuilding the Desktop is a good idea if files are opening in weird applications... hold down Command and Option keys while booting, or use Classic Mode's Rebuild Desktop... command.

OS9 or OS X ?

The type and creator information is oftentimes lost when you transfer a file to the emulated machine.

So you can't really fix what you have described, schoolhacker.

Regarding the limitations of the classic Mac OS:

"Pre-OS X versions of the Mac OS disposed of filename extensions entirely, instead using a file type code to identify the file format. Additionally, a creator code was specified to determine which application would be launched when the file's icon was double-clicked."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename_extension

So if the type and creator codes for a particular file are removed then you are out of luck and will have to handle each file one at a time. What you describe with the extensions is, as Euryale said, asking Mac OS to do something that it wasn't designed to do.

The best way to open .sit archives is to use drag and drop anyway; it's even stated in StuffIt's manuals! And I always keep a couple of AutoTypers on my desktop to make graphics files open in QuickTime's pic viewer, etc.

Yeah, the apps I mentioned are all OS7/8/9. OSX uses filename extensions (and directories) to confuse everyone...

hehehe, you can say that again themacmeister…

Although file extension can be used as a guide in OSX, it also uses a desktop file, so that, for example, I can have .pdf files, some which will open Preview (the default) and some which will open in Acrobat Reader once I set them to do so (I perform a Get Info and then set the Open With pane to the app I want this file to open with).

To expand further on the options in OS9, you can use the Download Options in Internet Explorer (there are probably other apps or utilities to do this in OS9, but IE preferences is easy to use). Here, you pick the applicatin (which sets the Creator and Type code) to use for each MIME file type, ie. for image/jpeg, you can pick any image editing app. And if you download a file of that type, the type and creator will be set for you. Remember that setting these preferences in IE actually sets the file "Internet Preferences" in the OS9 Preferences folder, so these settings should apply to any OS9 application downloading the file.

... and Internet Explorer runs on my 10.5.8 machine too! Win/Win situation!