File Associations

Windows provides the ability to associate a file type (file extension) with the application program which is used to open that file. This relationship is termed a file association. Microsoft Word establishes a file association so that when a .DOC file is double-clicked, Word will be used to open that file. Likewise, your Internet browser has established an association between itself and files with an HTML extension.

You might wish to associate one or more file types with Boxer so that it will be launched whenever one of these file types is double-clicked from within Explorer. Some users prefer this method of opening or loading files to using the Open command from within Boxer to open files.

During installation, Boxer's Setup program provided the opportunity to associate several common text file extensions with Boxer. If you elected to do this, some file types will already be associated with Boxer. In this case you will not need to establish associations for these file types: .TXT files, .INI files, .BAT files and .BTM files.

The method by which a file association is established depends on whether or not that file type is already associated with another application.

When you double-click on a file whose type has not yet been associated with another program, Windows presents a dialog box that allows you to select the program which should be used to open files of that type. Boxer should appear in the list of programs which can be used to open the file. If it does not, use the Other... button to locate the Boxer program. This dialog box contains a checkbox titled Always use this program to open this file. If you select this option, Windows will remember the association and Boxer will automatically be used to open files of this type in the future. By supplying a short description in the box provided, the file type will become registered using the description provided.

If the file type you would like to associate with Boxer has already been associated with another program, a different method must be used to establish the new association. Double-clicking on the file will simply launch the associated program, and no opportunity will be provided to specify the program to be launched as occurs for an unassociated file type.

The first step is to remove the existing file association. From within Explorer, select the Options command in the View menu (in Windows 98 this command is titled Folder Options). Click the File Types tab in the Options dialog box. A list of registered file types is displayed. Find the file type which is to be changed within the list of registered types. Check the information in the File type details display to be sure the right file type has been located. When you are sure you have located the correct file type, proceed as follows:

In the edit box titled Application used to perform action, enter the full filepath to the Boxer program. Use the Browse... button if needed to locate file.

Make sure that following the filepath is a Space character and the characters "%1", including the double quotes. This is very important.

The file association has been changed. Repeat this process as required to create other file associations.

In the most recent versions of Windows, it is no longer possible to establish a file association between an application (such as Boxer) and a file that has no file extension. Such associations had been permitted in earlier versions of Windows, but this appears to have changed in Windows Me, 2000, XP etc.

When creating a file association to edit a Batch file, be sure to associate Boxer with the edit action, and not the open action. 'Opening' a batch file has special meaning, as compared to other text files, because the command processor is charged with interpreting and processing the commands in the batch file.

You might wish to associate Boxer with the print action for some file types to gain quicker access to Boxer's Color Syntax Printing capability. Once this association is made, right-clicking on a file of the defined type and selecting the Print option from its context menu will launch Boxer so the file can be printed.