Hi,
On 04/22/2013 09:15 PM, David Faure wrote:
On Sunday 21 April 2013 23:22:39 Hans de Goede wrote:
That threads talks about a d-bus interface, which seems unnatural
to me, since for all other kind of open actions, we use mime-types ->
application logic.
But only for the basic "open this file in an application that supports this
type of file" action.
Which is exactly what we want here...
For everything else, more is needed. And doing that multiplying the command-
line hacks (I think anyone opening the code of xdg-open will agree with that
assesment) doesn't sound right, nor is inventing special-case mimetypes.
Instead, allowing DBus method calls in the newly-started or already-running
app allows to extend the available functionality to infinity.
As discussed in that thread, the dbus interface
idea adds nothing that allows the user to specify which file-manager
he wants to use (similar to how the user can select a preferred browser
and a preferred mail client).
The recently discussed (but not yet formalized) "Intents" spec will allow to
do exactly that:
1) pick the preferred file manager from .desktop files
(including the possibility for the user to change preference using a local
file, similar to mimeapps.list)
2) start it if not already running (knowing for sure which DBus name it will
register under)
This is inherently racy, and when we loose the race, depending on the
filemanager
in question we may end up with 2 different windows. Also most filemanagers
will throw up a default window, and then one more for the dbus call, so if
the filemanager is not running you end up with 2 windows.
nautilus has --no-default-window to fix this, others may have something too,
but this is not exactly simplifying the problem. Really d-bus is an
over-engineered
solution for this (and yes I do realize most filemanagers will use dbus
internally to talk to an already running instance).
3) make a dbus call to it, using a pre-agreed dbus interface, in this example
"select these files".
This is much more flexible, because whichever your next request will be, it
can be added to that method call, or additional method can be added.
There is no next request nautilus --select or dolphin --select, or
konqueror --select does exactly what most apps want here, and is nice and
simple. All we need is for a desktop-neutral way to do call the user's
preferred file-manager with --select (or its equivalent).
Regards,
Hans
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