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If you absolutely insist on having those 'generic wrappers', you'll find that the xdg scripts (xdg-open, xdg-email, etc) come pretty close to what you describe.
If you absolutely insist on having those 'generic wrappers', you'll find that the xdg scripts (xdg-open, xdg-email, etc) come pretty close to what you describe.
    ''...we try to avoid making people type a command into a terminal to do something...''
I agree that we shouldn't make anyone type a command.  I'm allowing for a more convenient way to for those users who do.
    ''...you'll find that the xdg scripts (xdg-open, xdg-email, etc) come pretty close to what you describe.''
The Xdg-utils are great, but they aren't intended for end users to use to launch common applications.  The Xdg-utils are meant to, in part, help applications open other applications.  Since users don't ordinarily run the Xdg-util commands directly, it is okay that they are named xdg-whatever, instead of something more meaningful or intuitive.  ''xdg-open "<nowiki>http://redhat.com/</nowiki>"'' is less intuitive than ''web-browser''.

Revision as of 11:42, 13 November 2008

What do you think? Please let me know your thought on this topic.

-- Darren


In general, on the desktop we try to avoid making people type a command into a terminal to do something - precisely because of the problem you mention: what is the name of the command, and what are the options, etc. Clicking on a file will open it in the preferred application for that purpose.

If you absolutely insist on having those 'generic wrappers', you'll find that the xdg scripts (xdg-open, xdg-email, etc) come pretty close to what you describe.

    ...we try to avoid making people type a command into a terminal to do something...

I agree that we shouldn't make anyone type a command. I'm allowing for a more convenient way to for those users who do.

    ...you'll find that the xdg scripts (xdg-open, xdg-email, etc) come pretty close to what you describe.

The Xdg-utils are great, but they aren't intended for end users to use to launch common applications. The Xdg-utils are meant to, in part, help applications open other applications. Since users don't ordinarily run the Xdg-util commands directly, it is okay that they are named xdg-whatever, instead of something more meaningful or intuitive. xdg-open "http://redhat.com/" is less intuitive than web-browser.