Hi list:

What exactly is xdg-open and how to I configure it to do what I want?

The question came up because I am using jabref, a Java based bibtex
management system. On my home machine, when I tried to open a PDF
file, java throws a file-not-found error on "xdg-open". But I have
xdg-utils installed, and xdg-open is found in /usr/bin. Right now I
have gotten around the problem by configuring jabref explicitly to use
xpdf to load PDF files. For all I know this is probably a
environment/PATH issue in the load script for jabref.

I took a look at the man page for xdg-open, and find the concept
intriguing. The idea seems useful. But how does one go about "setting
the default" programs for various documents?

If I try to issue "xdg-open file.pdf", it tries to load firefox, which
then asks me where to save the pdf file. This is rather obviously not
the desired behaviour. Maybe I'm blind or something, but I don't see
anything in the man page about how it determines what is the user's
preferred application.

Cheers,

W
--
Willie W. Wong wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire
et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton

On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 19:23 -0500, Willie Wong wrote:
> Hi list:
>
> What exactly is xdg-open and how to I configure it to do what I want?
>
> The question came up because I am using jabref, a Java based bibtex
> management system. On my home machine, when I tried to open a PDF
> file, java throws a file-not-found error on "xdg-open". But I have
> xdg-utils installed, and xdg-open is found in /usr/bin. Right now I
> have gotten around the problem by configuring jabref explicitly to use
> xpdf to load PDF files. For all I know this is probably a
> environment/PATH issue in the load script for jabref.
>
> I took a look at the man page for xdg-open, and find the concept
> intriguing. The idea seems useful. But how does one go about "setting
> the default" programs for various documents?
>
> If I try to issue "xdg-open file.pdf", it tries to load firefox, which
> then asks me where to save the pdf file. This is rather obviously not
> the desired behaviour. Maybe I'm blind or something, but I don't see
> anything in the man page about how it determines what is the user's
> preferred application.

It's a simple bash script. There's no magic. Take a peek at it.

-a

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 11:25:07PM -0500, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> It's a simple bash script. There's no magic. Take a peek at it.

Heh, somehow it didn't occur to me that might be the case. Thanks.

So after reading the script, xdg-open is not for me since I do not use
a well known DE.

Cheers,

W
--
Willie W. Wong wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire
et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton

On Saturday 13 February 2010 12:31:08 Willie Wong wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 11:25:07PM -0500, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> > It's a simple bash script. There's no magic. Take a peek at it.
>
> Heh, somehow it didn't occur to me that might be the case. Thanks.
>
> So after reading the script, xdg-open is not for me since I do not use
> a well known DE.


Most functions have a fallthrough to DE=generic.

Perhaps with that it might still be useful for you.

--
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com