The obvious behavior of setting the triad on the command line itself seems absent. This isn't a text/string/block processing or parsing utility like tr, awk, sed,... it is supposed to modify settings based on a fixed set of parameters. Requiring either a formatted "settings" file or a redirection of formatted stdin seems overkill. But then, if the goal was to be true to the obtuse 1970's origins of BSD, I suppose this is a success :)

Always-debatable UI design choices aside, outcome of the man page suggestion to output the existing uti's on the system doesn't seem to show all of them. Is there another method that will show the uti that corresponds to the promoted file extension, or is this only within the corresponding applications imported plist of them?

When using Parallels for instance, there appears no way to modify the launching app for a uti if the launching app is a Windows-based exe within a Parallels virtual machine. If this is the fault of Parallels not correctly performing some function when mapping the uti to the Windows-born utility, then I apologize for my ignorance on the subject. However, Mac OS 10.5.2 does launch the app for the uti and I found no way to change it using this utility, but again, I am not a programmer. The suggested reference at http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/understanding_utis/understand_utis.tasks/chapter_3_section_3.html proved of little use due to my admittedly laymen knowledge on the subject.

I will continue to research but, again, in the example where vlc.exe (within a Parallels VM running Windows) is the default app for the extension .mkv (however it is being promoted, I assume mime-type ?) it seems impossible to replace the vlc.exe-in-Windows-in-VM with the /Applications/VLC.app.

This is the only example where I have attempted to use the utility. I cannot comment on its use for other, more typical scenarios but I expect it to work as advertised.

Has much changed since the last line of this page of a circa-2000 article on Arse' ?: (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/2q00/macos-qna/macos-x-qa-2.html) If so I would appreciate a pointer in the right direction toward enlightenment.

I welcome your comments/help/ridicule

-=dave