Is there a wider use for this utility?



Last night I wrote a little command line application that can be used to
open any file with the appropriate application for its MIME type. So,
for example, when I run 'open myFile.py'
it opens up my text editor of choice for text/x-python files and I can
write some code. When I run 'open some-music.m3u'
it starts my music player and 'open Photos/*.jpg' opens up all the jpegs
in that directory. Anyway, you get the idea. :-)

(By the way, I have stolen this idea from something I saw in Mac OS X
while watching somebody use it. They already have an "open" command that
works exactly as I described above.)

It struck me today that this may be a useful utility for people using
the accessibility infrastructure: if you already have a terminal open,
opening up a file is a matter of one command (assuming your preferred
applications for handling different types are already acceptably
configured).

There is nothing new here, of course: it is just a command-line version
of what can already be achieved with Nautilus, for example. And it is
not, strictly speaking, in the GNOME Desktop spirit. However, I am not
concerned about that sort of thing, since I wrote this tool to be able
to work efficiently and only realised after the event that it may have
other uses.

If there is a use for something like this, can somebody suggest where to
put it. I am talking about one file; maybe 200 lines of code. Possibly
with a man page if there is demand for it. So making a separate package
is a bit ridiculous. However, I cannot think of any suitable module to
piggy-back on. Ideas?

In the meantime, if anybody wants a copy, just drop me some email and I
will send it to you.

Cheers,
Malcolm




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