A few years back I wrote a little script called appinfo to make getting info about an
installed application a little simpler (and prettier). It’s served me
well over the years. I added a couple of things to it today and figured
I’d mention it again.
This script is a lot like doing a Get Info on an app in Finder, just
without having to open your Applications folder, or having to expand
hidden sections in the info window. Just type appinfo APP_NAME to get
instant, pertinent info. One common application is getting the bundle
identifier for an app, for use in scripting (or with Bunch).
First, I added an architecture check. Back in 2017 only Intel binaries mattered, so that wasn’t included. Now it will tell you if the app is compiled for Intel, Apple Silicon, or both.
I also added handling for info returned by mdls as arrays, so keys like “Alternate Names” and Architecture can be output in a friendly way. This means you can also add new keys to the script’s config section with abandon.
Just for fun, I added support for
chafa (in addition to the
existing support for imgcat). If you have one of these installed and
your terminal supports it, the app icon will be included in the info
output.
That’s it. An update simple simple enough that I actually have time to write about. Unlike what’s happening with doing right now… once I finish the current version of that, I’m going to need a couple hours to detail what I’ve done to it lately.
Check out the script in this gist. Just save it in your path as
appinfo and make it executable with chmod a+x appinfo. It takes the
name of the app you want info for (must be installed on your machine):
e.g. appinfo Preview.
