An AppleScript droplet (supports on open event) and applet (supports on run) for creating .sym links of dragged and dropped (or selected) files/folders.
I think I originally started it in the late 2000s using the Apple Script Editor app (AppleScript), but then at some point years later discovered Script Debugger (Late Night Software | The home of Script Debugger) and fell in love with that. (Or at least came to the conclusion that it was a lot better than the Apple offering when it came to the business of learning a little more about AppleScript. I’m not sure that love is involved.)
I seem to mainly use it for creating shared assets in Cinema 4D/After Effects projects and Visual Studio Code projects, where it seems to work well (whereas straight Apple Finder aliases fail):
eg: having several projects sharing common Javascript folders/files
The script itself is simple enough: if files/folders are dropped onto the app, they are “handled”, ie: a .sym is created for each of them. If nothing is dropped, a dialog box is displayed allowing either folders or files to be selected, which will then handled.
There’s a little minimal error handling, but it could be better (probably).
Under the hood, it uses the standard command line:
ln -s /path/to/item.js /path/to/item.js.sym
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/script-editor/welcome/mac
This is another project I stumbled across whilst (finally, after all these years) composing this README, and having tried it out, it’s pretty good, both as a utility and as a tutorial in how to create MacOS Finder extensions in Swift:
https://github.com/ololx/quick-symlink
This is by the same author as the Finder extension above, except it’s an Automator workflow calling
/System/Library/Automator/Run Shell Script.action
with the same ln -s etc etc command.