Found a nice extension to emacs dired: Sunrise.
If you want to open files in external apps from Sunrise mode add the lines below in your ".emacs"
If you want to open files in external apps from Sunrise mode add the lines below in your ".emacs"
(defun lx-sunrise-display-external ()
"Open file at point in an external application."
(interactive)
(let ((file (dired-get-filename)))
(call-process shell-file-name nil nil nil shell-command-switch
(format "%s \"%s\"" lx-sunrise-external-viewer file))))
(setq lx-sunrise-external-viewer "open")
(define-key sr-mode-map '[\C-return] 'lx-sunrise-display-external)
Now you should be able to open files with external apps with C-return. I have only tried this with OS X Emacs 24.