Environment Variables in Mac OS X

I've been recently having trouble starting certain java applets on my MacBook. For some reason , once downloaded, the Jar file would not extract or run. After much tinkering I found that the applets would work if I started my browser from the command line rather than the dock.

Similarly I couldn't get certain scripts to work from textmate, but they would work if I started textmate from the command line.

The problem was that the $PATH variable I had set in my .bash_profile was not the same as that set in my ~/.MacOS/environment.plist file.

Certain applications depend on being able to read your PATH and other environment variables. However those set in .bash_profile have absolutely no effect on apps started from the Dock. Instead make sure that the PATH variable in your environment.plist file is in sync with that in your .bash_login by doing 'echo $PATH' in a terminal and copying the result into said file.