X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.8 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_HI,T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org X-IronPortListener: Outbound_SMTP X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AkgBALVMr02cKEcW/2dsb2JhbACXO44Kd60BmiCFcQSSPA From: "Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]" To: "cygwin AT cygwin DOT com" , "'SJ Wright'" Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:17:14 -0400 Subject: RE: Idea on how to improve cygstart Message-ID: <0105D5C1E0353146B1B222348B0411A209E8030BE3@NIHMLBX02.nih.gov> References: <4DAE1B1C DOT 9010905 AT charter DOT net> In-Reply-To: <4DAE1B1C.9010905@charter.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com SJ Wright sent the following at Tuesday, April 19, 2011 7:31 PM >Well, maybe there's a better word than "improve." Maybe "streamline" >would be better. Anyhow, here it is. > >Allow users to create a list of paths to GUI apps they have on their >systems -- other than the selected Windows defaults -- and using either >aliases (like "monkey" for SeaMonkey 2.0 or "irfan" for IrfanView) or a >syntax similar to how ImageMagick used to work (library:filetype) when >converting files from one format to another, facilitate quick and easy >opening of files in applications Cygwin users would _prefer to open them >in, rather than the assigned default. > >Should this prove to be too radical a re-working of cygstart, then >perhaps it's time to introduce another utility to perform the above >tasks, and have it install with Cygwin and update with upgrades. Maybe >call it "userstart" or "winstart" or something along those lines? > >Unless I miss my guess, this might put Cygwin ahead of complete and >genuine Linux/Unix distributions such as Ubuntu, It's been my experience >with the latter that instead of system defaults, one only has recourse >on the command line to a spare list of GUI apps that open different >file types, and not all of them are "out-of-the-box" Debian or GNOME >installs, which puts one at a disadvantage (if only w/regard to the time >involved in doing "apt-gets"). How about in ~/.bashrc function irfan() { cygstart /path/irfanview.exe "$(cygpath -w "$1")" } Or in a file named /usr/local/bin/irfan that has been made executable #!/bin/dash for IrfanFile in "$@" do cygstart /path/irfanview.exe "$(cygpath -w "${IrfanFile}")" done If you never give irfan a file or only files in the current directory, you could also put an alias in ~/.bashrc alias irfan "cygstart /path/irfanview.exe" Once one has the model, it shouldn't be difficult to replicate it for any desired program. Best wishes, - Barry Disclaimer: Statements made herein are not made on behalf of NIAID. -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple