Two ways for the webarchive file

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

A webarchive in the blinder can be open with a web browser.

But there two ways, and that causes some trouble:
click on the link, opens the webarchive into the default web browser, which can be different than Safari.
click on the arrow, always the webarchive into Safari.

I didn’t find where the web browser can be changed in Scrivener, where I’d like to always use my default web browser.
webarchive.pdf (77.4 KB)

2

To clarify one point, and to explain why you are seeing two different results: when you click on the hyperlink in the footer bar you are in effect just requesting a URL to be accessed, which is the same exact action as clicking on a link in a text document, e-mail, References pane, etc. In these cases the system will use your default web browser, whatever that may be. You aren’t opening the WebArchive in other words, you are opening the original web page that the WebArchive was saved from (and thus it might not look the same any more).

Now when it comes to opening WebArchive files, that is not a matter for your default browser to handle, since we aren’t talking about opening pages off of the Web any more, but opening files on your computer. There are three different ways to change the behaviour here, two of them being basic Mac usage tips:

  1. System level: change how every .webarchive file loads, no matter what you trigger the loading event from, be it Scrivener or DEVONthink or double-clicking in Finder. That is done via the standard mechanism for changing file handlers: use an example .webarchive file and “Get Info” on it in Finder. Within the “Open with” section, select your preferred .webarchive handler and then click the Change All… button. The “(default)” designation printed in this panel beside the program you select should change.
  2. File level: change which program the file itself loads in, again globally. All you do there is omit the last step above, don’t click the “Change all” button. I don’t recommend this method with Scrivener since getting at its .webarchive files in Finder isn’t straightforward in the first place. I just mention it here for completion.
  3. Finally Scrivener itself can override Finder. From that very same arrow button you’ve been clicking, right-click instead. Select your preferred WebArchive viewer/editor, and upon doing so Scrivener will ask if you wish to open this file in that viewer, or all .webarchive files in Scrivener from that point on (this has no impact on your Finder settings).

Note you will find most web browsers do not actually load these things; they are not a standard format, but rather something designed by Apple for Safari and Mac development, so I don’t know if you’ll find this tip to be all that useful in practice for this, but it’s a good trick to know as it works for all research files you dump into Scrivener that have that “open with” arrow button.