Goal

There’s a problem when a computer has multiple versions of applications like Adobe® InDesign®, QuarkXPress®, Adobe Illustrator®, Adobe Photoshop®… installed. Double-clicking a file’s icon will often cause the wrong application version to launch.

As a result, a designer will unwittingly re-save a document into a more recent file format, which is often a bad thing. For example, it could be a customer’s file, and the customer will not be able to open the updated file when it is e-mailed it back to her.

To work around this problem on Mac OS X and Windows, we have created Soxy. Soxy fixes the problem by working as an invisible ‘go-between’ for these applications, a bit akin to a traffic cop.

You won’t notice that you have Soxy installed; it is all but invisible during normal use. However, double-clicked documents will open in the proper application. Cut way back on those ‘aargh!’ moments!

Over the course of a day, Soxy saves a lot of time: being able to double-click a file is so much faster than first having to verify the file’s version, then drag/dropping it onto the proper application’s icon, or having to use File/Open from within the correct application.

Soxy also saves money by averting expensive disasters and customer upset. Every workstation in the prepress department should have Soxy installed!

When any of the supported document types is double-clicked, Soxy will open them. It will quickly analyze the file, determine its version (e.g. InDy CS, InDy CS2, InDy CS3, QXP 7, QXP 8, Photoshop EPS, Illustrator EPS…), and it will then forward the document to the appropriate version of the associated application.

The designated application will then open the document. As a bonus, the Macintosh version of Soxy will also change generic document file icons to something more meaningful.

The download link is at the bottom of the page – we have a time-limited fully functional demo versions for Mac and Windows available for download.

Purchase

Thanks to our unique approach to licensing, we’re able to offer licenses for our tools for a very low per-install cost. Please read http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing.

There are options to purchase a single install, or order multiple installs. We can also provide a special site license that caters for large deployments within large accounts.

For

• people who have multiple operating systems installed
• people who use more than one computer
• small workgroups

we recommend the 10-install coupon code for US$159.00 – each such coupon code allows you to install Soxy up to 10 times – which comes in handy if you have multiple operating systems on your computer and/or multiple workstations.

For larger workgroups, we also have 100-install coupon codes for US$1299.00.

Important: if you’re in a hurry, don’t order a multi-install. Purchase one or more single installs instead. The multi-install coupon codes are manually generated, so it can be some time – even more than 48 hours – before you receive it, depending on time zones, our working hours, and a host of other factors. The single install license, on the other hand, is fully automatic – you normally get it within the hour. And don’t forget to check your e-mail spam folder!

To order a 10-install coupon code for US$159.00, click this ‘Buy Now’ button:

To order a 100-install coupon code for US$1299.00, click this ‘Buy Now’ button:

You can also purchase a single install license of Soxy for US$19.00. To do that, simply install the software and click ‘Get License…’ when the ‘beg’ dialog appears. There is no ‘Buy Now’ button for single licenses. These single install licenses are generated by an automated system, and typically arrive by e-mail within the hour.

Attention: licenses are not transportable between computers or operating systems.

If you want to continue using Soxy after the demo period lapses, restart InDesign, and click the ‘Get License…’ button when Soxy puts up a ‘beg’ dialog.

You’ll be asked for your coupon code (if you have one) or else you’ll be guided through a payment process.

Eventually you’ll receive a license file via e-mail. Please check your spam-box – often, our licenses are mistaken for spam.

Large accounts: when deploying Soxy to a large numbers of workstations, managing license files can become a hassle for the I.T. department, as each individual installation needs an individual license file.

To cater for these large accounts, we also can provide custom versions of Soxy that don’t need license files at all, which greatly simplifies deployment in large quantities. These special, tailored versions are sold on a a contractual basis, and cost US$39.00 per named user (as opposed to being accounted for per-install), with a minimum of 100 users. E-mail sales@rorohiko.com for more information.

Downloading

To download a fully functional, time limited (20 days) demo version of Soxy for Mac OS X or Windows, click the download link at the bottom of the page. You can convert the demo into a fully functional version by clicking the Get License… button when you double-click the Soxy application icon.

How-tos

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2009/11/23/soxy-fights-an-army-of-unknown-pdf-files/

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2010/01/03/soxy-and-eps-files/

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2010/01/27/estk_and_soxy/

Installing (Windows)

(Mac instructions are in the next section). Download the .zip file from our web site (see bottom of this page). Inside the .zip you should find an .msi file. Extract the .msi file to your desktop, and double-click it to install it.

Click through the various installer screens – there are no specific install options to choose, it’s a straightforward installation. Once the installation is finished, you should end up with a Soxy.exe shortcut on your desktop.

On more recent versions of Windows (Vista/Windows 7) Soxy needs to be allowed to run one single time with administrator permissions – it needs to set up some registry entries. If you’re on Vista or Windows 7, immediately after installing Soxy, you need to right-click the Soxy icon, and select Run as administrator.

Run as administrator is only necessary once, immediately after installation.

On Windows XP you can simply double-click the Soxy.exe icon.

When you’re running a demo version of Soxy, you’ll first be presented with a ‘beg-dialog’ where you can click Get License… to initiate the procedure of purchasing a Soxy license. For now, click OK to get past the beg-dialog.

The Soxy configuration screen should appear .Later on, Soxy can be run as a normal application - double-clicking the Soxy.exe shortcut will always bring you to the Soxy configuration screen.

Click the little ‘plus sign’ in front of a version-dependent file format to get more information.

Pay attention to the fact Soxy will not handle documents if the corresponding checkbox in the Open with Soxy column is not ticked.

If Soxy does not seem to work, the first thing to do is to double-click the Soxy icon and check whether it is configured correctly – if Open with Soxy is not ticked, Soxy won’t interfere with that document type, and hence might seem to be inoperative.

To change any of these, simply select the line by clicking it. Soxy will show some of your installed applications – those that it thinks can open that particular document type. You choose amongst them by ticking the checkbox in front of the application you want Soxy to use.

When Soxy is launched for the very first time, it will automatically scan your hard drive and try to find all interesting applications. That process takes a little while, and is fairly thorough, but it might still miss some applications. Also, you might install a new version of some supported application, some time after you already have installed Soxy.

In those cases, where you don’t see an application listed in the main Soxy screen shown earlier, you will need click the Find Executables button in order to make Soxy re-scan your drive and add the missing application to the list of applications available.

If desired, you can also remove some of the applications listed in case they are irrelevant to your particular workflow.

To do that, go to the Edit – Preferences… menu to see the current list of executables:

This shows a list of applications that Soxy knows about.

You can remove some of these by selecting the entry, and clicking the red ‘-’ button. You can add additional applications by clicking the green ‘+’ button.

Under the File Formats tab you can see all File Formats that Soxy supports. Unchecking an Enable checkbox allows you to completely remove a particular file format from the main Soxy configuration screen.

If the main configuration screen is not showing a particular file format, please check the Enable settings on the File Formats tab under Edit – Preferences

Installing (Mac OS X)

Open the .dmg file and drag the Soxy folder to your Applications folder.

Let’s say you want to use Soxy for InDesign files.

Go find the Soxy application icon in the folder you just copied into your Applications folder. Double-click the Soxy application icon.

Double-clicking Soxy‘s icon brings up the Soxy configuration screen.

When you’re running a demo version of Soxy, you’ll first be presented with a ‘beg-dialog’ where you can click Get License… to initiate the procedure of purchasing a Soxy license. For now, click OK to get past the beg-dialog.

The configuration screen looks similar to this:

In the left column you see a list of document main types that Soxy knows how to recognize. For each of them, the rightmost column either lists the application it would use to open that particular document type, or it shows the words Version-dependent.

Click the disclosure triangle in front of a version-dependent file format to get more information.

To change any of these, simply select the line by clicking it. Soxy will show some of your installed applications – those that it thinks can open that particular document type. You choose amongst them by ticking the checkbox in front of the application you want Soxy to use.

In the sample shown above, InDesign CS documents will currently be opening into InDesign CS, and I have a whole host of other InDesign versions on my computer that could also open these documents for me.

Caveat: the Finder allows a user to override the system-wide Open With settings for individual document files. Such manually overridden document files won’t be ‘captured’ by Soxy. See further down, under Issues for more info.

When Soxy is launched for the very first time, it will automatically scan your hard drive and try to find all interesting applications. That process takes a little while, and is fairly thorough, but it might still miss some applications. Also, you might install a new version of some supported application, some time after you already have installed Soxy.

In those cases, where you don’t see an application listed in the main Soxy screen shown earlier, you will need click the Find Executables button in order to make Soxy re-scan your drive and add the missing application to the list of applications available.

If desired, you can also remove some of the applications listed in case they are irrelevant to your particular workflow.

To do that, go to the Soxy – Preferences… menu to see the current list of executables:

This shows a list of applications that Soxy knows about.

You can remove some of these by selecting the entry, and clicking the red ‘-’ button. You can add additional applications by clicking the green ‘+’ button.

Under the File Formats tab you can see all File Formats that Soxy supports. Unchecking an Enable checkbox allows you to completely remove a particular file format from the main Soxy configuration screen.

If the main configuration screen is not showing a particular file format, please check the Enable settings on the File Formats tab under Edit – Preferences

The Other tab has some rarely used settings – on the Other tab you’ll find a checkbox that allows you to turn off the automatic ‘icon correction’ feature in Soxy, for those rare cases where it interferes with file modification dates.

Using Soxy (Mac and Windows)

Using Soxy is easy: if you have ticked the checkbox in the Soxy window so it handles the document type at hand, all you need to do is double-click the document.

Soxy also works as an intermediate when using InDesign’s Edit Original function on the Links palette – instead of opening a placed .ai file in the latest version of Illustrator, InDesign will dutifully open the document with Soxy, which will in turn pick your preferred version of Illustrator.

Initially, all files assigned to Soxy get a generic icon, with the word ‘Soxy’ faintly visible on the icon.

On the Mac, when you double-click such a file, Soxy will analyze it and replace the generic icon with a more appropriate document icon – in this case the file was actually an Illustrator CS2 file, so the icon would become a proper Illustrator CS2 icon. On Windows, files keep their generic Soxy icons.

Alternatively, if you had decided to not have Illustrator files be handled by Soxy when double-clicked, you could still drag/drop also the document file onto the Soxy icon. It will open the document in the appropriate version of the associated application.

An example: assume you have both InDesign CS3 and InDesign CS4 installed, and you already have InDesign CS4 running.

Dragging an InDesign CS3 document onto the Soxy application icon in its default configuration will launch InDesign CS3 and open the document in InDesign CS3, even though InDesign CS4 is already running.

Soxy and ExtendScript

Soxy also has some smarts when it comes to handle InDesign ExtendScript files. ExtendScript files (with a .jsx file name extension) can be placed anywhere on the computer – you’re not forced to put them into the Scripts folder any more.

Double-click the .jsx file, and Soxy will run the script in InDesign.

If you want, you can also ‘auto-target’ your .jsx files. For example, you can simply open the .jsx file in a text editor and add a comment line:

// InDesign CS3

near the beginning of the script, and Soxy will automatically run the script in InDesign CS3 each time you double-click it.

Example: create a small .jsx file helloFromCS3.jsx with in it:

// InDesign CS3
alert("hello");

Put the script file on the desktop. Assuming you have InDesign CS3 installed, when you double-click it, InDesign CS3 will launch, and display an alert dialog with hello in it.

Soxy also honors scripts that use the #target keyword.

Another neat feature of Soxy: when you look at a script in the InDesign Scripts Panel, you can right-click it and use the Edit Script function.

Without Soxy you don’t really know whether your script will be opened by the appropriate ExtendScript Toolkit – often it’s the wrong one – e.g. ExtendScript Toolkit CS4 might open your script while you’re trying to debug a script in InDesign CS3.

Once you let Soxy handle your .jsx files, all will be well: it will automatically pick the correct ExtendScript Toolkit to use.

Soxy and Adobe Bridge

Soxy also works well with Adobe Bridge. It’s very similar to how you go about it in the Finder. First, select the Bridge CSx – Preferences menu, and then go to the File Type Associations section.

Find the file name extension you want to handle with Soxy, and simply select Soxy from the Bridge preferences popup.

That’s all there is to it – double-clicking the file in Bridge will now use Soxy, and that means you can now handle multiple versions of InDesign or Illustrator through Bridge!

Options Dialog

You can hold the <Option> (a.k.a. <Alt>) or <Shift> key while Soxy is launching after a double-click.

This will bring up a dialog for routing the document to an alternate application version.

There’s a bit of a trick to it; the proper sequence on the Mac is:

• double-click document icon in the Finder
• immediately after the double click (and I mean, immediately – you have to be very quick), start holding the <Option> or <Alt> key until the dialog appears.

On Windows:

• click the document icon once to select it
• hold the <Shift> key
• while holding the <Shift> key, double-click document icon in Explorer
• release the <Shift> key.

On the Mac, this dialog also comes in handy if you want to get rid of a whole lot of generic icons without being forced to open each and every file.

Suppose you have a Mac folder full of generic-Soxy-iconed files. Select all of them, and double-click one of the selected files, then, a split second later, start holding the <Option> key. Wait until the dialog appears, and then click Cancel.

Soxy will now assign the proper icon to all files, but it won’t open any of them – that’s handy if you want to get proper icons on a few hundreds of various documents in one go!

Activating the Demo version

Simply install the demo version as outlined above, and then double-click the Soxy application icon.

When the ‘beg-dialog’ appears, click the Get License… button.

You’ll be directed to a web page where you can begin the purchase and registration process. In case you have a pre-paid coupon code for Soxy (e.g. one of our 10- or 100-install coupon codes), you should enter it on this web page and skip the payment part of the process.

Once the process is complete, a license file will be e-mailed out to you by our license server – this might take a little while; in most cases it takes less than 30 minutes for the e-mail to arrive. Make sure you check your e-mail spam folder – often, our license files are mistaken for spam by over-enthusiastic anti-spam software.

Once you receive the license file, re-launch Soxy again, and now click Import License… Then direct it to import the license file you just received. Keep the license file in a safe spot in case you need it to re-install Soxy.

In case the license file does not arrive within an hour or so, e-mail us at support@rorohiko.com so we can help you out.

In case you have lost your computer’s license file and you need to re-install Soxy, simply go through the same motions – our license server will recognize your computer from the previous license request, and will re-send the license file without taking you through another payment process.

Issues

* On Mac OS X you might bump into ‘wayward files’ – files that seem to defy Soxy, and refuse to cooperate. That’s because the Finder allows the user to override the system-wide Open With settings on a file-per-file basis. To fix this, right-click on the wayward document file icon, and select Get Info. In the ensuing window, make sure the file is set to open with Soxy.

When you (re)configure Soxy, it will change the system-wide Finder settings so most of the targeted document files will automatically open with Soxy . However, document files whose Open With setting has been individually changed some time earlier won’t be affected by this change in the Finder settings. They’ll continue to open with whatever was configured. The only way around it is to change the file’s setting for Open With to become Soxy.

* If you have not upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5.6 or higher, you have to know that Soxy sometimes causes the well-known ‘peek-a-boo’ bug in InDesign CS3 to rear its ugly head. It seems to be especially bad when you have the Mac OS X Leopard ‘Spaces’ feature enabled.

InDesign CS3 decides to hide itself, and stays hidden – and only a force quit can bring things back under control. The issue is fixed with Apple’s 10.5.6 update to Leopard.

Version history

Version 1.4.2 – 28 July 2010:

• [Mac OS X] Added Sparkle logo.
• Fixed bug where incorrect versions of QuarkXPress and InDesign were detected.

Version 1.4.1 – 27 July 2010:

• Added site license support.
• Added default preferences support.
• Fixed bug where inx and incx files wouldn’t open with Soxy.
• Fixed bug where Soxy wouldn’t cancel multiple launces.
• Fixed bug where icons wouldn’t show up in the executables list.
• Improved launching & running speed.
• Bug fixes.

• Known Issues:
  • [Mac OS X] Sometimes finder icons don’t show up correctly (FIX: log out & log in)

Version 1.3.0 – 01 July 2010:

• [Mac OS X] Added Sparkle support.
• Added support for adding executables and customizing which fileformats they support.
• Added support for XML files.
• Added new icons for Web files.
• Added support for JPEG images.
• Added support for PNG images.
• Fixed bug where Windows QuarkXPress documents wouldn’t be recognised by Soxy.
• More bug fixes.

Version 1.2.4 beta - 17 May 2010:

• [Windows] List selections now have a blue background.
• Bug fixes.

Version 1.2.3 beta - 14 May 2010:

• [Mac OS X] Added support for InDesign documents without extensions.
• [Mac OS X] Added support for InCopy documents without extensions.
• [Mac OS X] Added support for JavaScript files without extensions.
• [Mac OS X] Added support for PDF documents without extensions.
• [Mac OS X] Added support for RTF documents without extensions.
• [Mac OS X] Added support for Web documents without extensions.
• Bug fixes.

Version 1.2.2 beta - 13 May 2010:

• [Mac OS X] Added support for QuarkXPress documents without extensions.
• Added support for QuarkXPress EPS documents.
• Fixed bug where some EPS files wouldn’t be detected by Soxy.

Version 1.2.0 beta – 4 May 2010:

• Added support for Adobe CS5.
• Fixed a bug where Soxy wouldn’t position on an external screen.
• Fixed a bug on Windows where Soxy wouldn’t recognise Illustrator files.
• Improved Soxy startup speed on Windows.
• Added support for Windows to open multiple files in Soxy.

Version 1.1.3 – 15 March 2010

• Fixed a bug where files on a networked drive wouldn’t open.
• Fixed a bug where some PDF files weren’t recognised.

Version 1.1.1 (Mac OS X) – 06 March 2010

• Fixed bug where Soxy wouldn’t run on a non-admin account on Mac OS X

Version 1.1.0 – 14 February 2010

• Added icons for Windows XP.
• Added support for Windows Vista.
• Added support for Windows 7.
• Bug fixes.

Version 1.0.7 for Mac – 14 January 2010

• Added option to open InDesign documents via a Script (Fixes bug in Mac OS X 10.6.2, where the Finder cannot open documents with ‘#’ in the title.)
• Bug fixes.

Version 1.0.4 for Mac – 4 January 2010

• Added support for EPS, RTF, web files.

Version 1.0.3 for Mac – 29 November 2009

• Bug fixes.

Version 1.0.2 for Mac – 25 November 2009

• Added “Always Ask” option when selecting which executable opens which file format.
• Fixed bug where icons wouldn’t update.
• Other bug fixes.

Version 1.0.1 for Mac – 24 November 2009

• An Extendscript file opened with Option/Alt click is now treated as a Generic Extendscript file.
• Fixed bug where you couldn’t untick the “Open with Soxy” checkboxes.
• Other bug fixes.

Version 1.0.0 for Mac – 19 November 2009

• First official release for Mac OS X
• Added option to associate Soxy with file extensions
• Improved Extendscript support
• Updated icons.
• Bug fixes
• Known issues: if a file type is already associated to an older version of Soxy before running Soxy 1.0, you won’t be able to disable the ‘Open with Soxy’. To work around this, do Get Info on any sample of the problem-filetype (e.g. a .pdf file), and set the ‘Open With’ to anything but Soxy. After that things should work.

Version 0.2.1b for Windows – 1 November 2009

• Windows beta bug fixes.

Version 0.2.0b for Windows – 29 October 2009

• Windows beta version released.

Version 0.1.5b for Mac – 30 May 2009

• Added support for QuarkXPress 7 and 8.
• Added support for InCopy CS4
• Added support for InDesign Extendscript CS2, CS3, CS4.
• User interface update.
• Bug fixes.

Version 0.1.3b for Mac – 5 May 2009

• Initial beta release.

Downloads:

• Fully functional time-limited demo version.
• Expires after 20 demo days.
• Single ‘per-install’ licenses are US$19.00/install. Check higher up on this web page for info about site licenses.
• Click here for more info about our licensing system.

Latest Stable (supports CS-CS5) (1.4.2):

Download Soxy for Macintosh
Download Soxy for Windows

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