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Can I customize Package Explorer to treat a folder as a file?

Actually, I want to keep a .app file in my project as a file. But when I keep it in Eclipse, it is treated as folder.

Can I change this behavior of Eclipse for Project Explorer? Actually my .app is a file for Mac OS, so it should be treated as file only, which is unfortunately not.

Can I change it programmatically?

This is also posted on Stack Overflow. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11035519/eclipse-how-can-app-file-be-treated-as-a-file-in-package-explorer-for-mac-os

Can anyone add an eclipse tag also here? I can't as I have less than 300 reputation.

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1 Answer

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You can't talk Eclipse into treating app bundles as files.

Mac apps are actually "bundles", which are special folders, not files. The Finder treats them as files, but anything that uses lower-level file system APIs will see a .app file as the folder it actually is.

If you look at the appify script on Github, you can see that just making a few plain folders in a specific structure will cause the Finder to treat them as a file.

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This is just making app file which i already have. I think you have misunderstood this question. I want that when i copy this app file to Eclipse then in package explorer it should be shown as file and not as Folder. I know that it is a special folder but i want that eclipse should treat this app as file. Can you please guide me with this. Thanks in advance – DShah Jun 15 '12 at 6:49
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@DShah I understand what you're looking for. It is, unfortunately, impossible. The rest is just my explanation as to why. – CajunLuke Jun 15 '12 at 13:38
Do you think Eclipse will take this bug or improvement whatever you say ...??? Or any other way i can achieve this?? – DShah Jun 15 '12 at 14:27
@DShah The best I can come up with would be to zip up the app bundle, but then you'd have to unzip it before executing it. I can't think of any Mac executable that you can double-click in the Finder that isn't a bundle. – CajunLuke Jun 15 '12 at 15:19
ok gr8.... i will do that and will be easy in my case... Thanks a lot... +10 – DShah Jun 15 '12 at 16:51

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