Working With the Command Line and the GUI

In Mac OS X, the command line and the GUI work hand in hand. Transferring data from one environment to the other and moving between the two environments is done very easily. You can select a group of files in the Finder and drag them to a Terminal window to add their paths to a command.

The open command enables you to open files and URLs as if you had double-clicked them in the Finder. For example, the command open ~/Documents/ReadMe.rtf launches TextEdit (or your preferred application for opening RTF files) and opens the specified ReadMe.rtf file. Similarly, the command open http://www.apple.com launches Safari (or your preferred Web browser) and opens the Apple home page.