Fwd: 'open' instead of 'xdg-open' for usability?

[Robert Qualls]

> I have to agree with you, but I have strong doubts about just
> "renaming" xdg-open to open (without keeping xdg-open available)
> because of lot of 3rd party applications (including proprietary one)
> have standardized on xdg-open and not having xdg-open available
> will break them, for zero added value.

Looking back, I see how my thread title suggested renaming xdg-open. I
actually didn't mean this. I just think that the open should refer to
xdg-open or any other agnostic file opener. Other than breaking
things, it's quite possible that xdg-open will not always be the best
way to open files, especially since it assumes a desktop environment.

Since some of the more conservative distributions are worried about
compatiblity, it might be possible for an interim script to determine
whether the call is likely to open a file or is intended for openvt.
Maybe. xdg-mime query filetype and if it's a file, use xdg-open?

I threw this together. Seems to work for the one file case.

if xdg-mime query filetype $1 &>/dev/null; then
  xdg-open $1 &>/dev/null
else
  openvt "$@"
fi

As an update, I posted an issue at Arch Linux, and the response seemed
to indicate it was acceptable for them, but Arch culture is to wait
for changes to occur upstream, so they aren't going to change
anything. As of right now, open points to nothing in Arch.

On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 3:37 AM, Frederic Crozat <fred at crozat.net> wrote:
> 2013/12/17 Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt at canonical.com>:
>
>> I wouldn't be so hasty in giving up on renaming. Ubuntu has already
>> been through something similar in 2006, when we changed /bin/sh from
>> Bash to Dash. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh> A bunch of shell
>> scripts broke, and people had to fix them. We survived.
>>
>> Renaming/aliasing xdg-open to open, you wouldn't have a righteous
>> Posix standard to stand on. But on the other hand, I'd guess many,
>> many fewer scripts would be affected. I suggest lobbying a niche OS to
>> try it and see what happens. If it works, the more popular OSes can
>> follow.
>
> I have to agree with you, but I have strong doubts about just
> "renaming" xdg-open to open (without keeping xdg-open available)
> because of lot of 3rd party applications (including proprietary one)
> have standardized on xdg-open and not having xdg-open available
> will break them, for zero added value.
> --
> Frederic Crozat
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