Using Firefox's 'View Source' with BBEdit results in a blank file

Question

I use Firefox for browsing and BBEdit for text editing. I want the 'View Source' command in Firefox to display the source code in BBEdit rather than in Firefox's own window.

I have adjusted the Firefox config settings appropriately, by setting view_source.editor.external to true and view_source.editor.path to /Applications/BBEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/BBEdit.

When I click on 'View Source' a new instance of BBEdit launches (even if one is already open), with a blank text document.

If I set the editor to TextEdit, it works fine, with the source code displayed in a TextEdit window. Why isn't it displaying in BBEdit?

Answer 1

Make sure you have installed the command line tools for BBEdit. If you're not sure choose "Install Command Line Tools” from the BBEdit (application) menu.

Now in FireFox for the view_source.editor.path option enter /usr/bin/bbedit and it should work.