Idea on how to improve cygstart

Idea on how to improve cygstart

[SJ Wright]

Hi.

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").

Steve W

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RE: Idea on how to improve cygstart

[Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]]

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.

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