Before i get too deep into this, does anything like this already exist?

GPE filemanager and canoe don't have an 'open with' feature and the built in file manager doesnt even leave /home/user/mydocs

So i have started coding a proof of concept and i've got one working but its still very ugly.

Basically i just want a file browser than can browse the whole filesystem, and i pick a file and select app to launch it with.

i would think eventually i would like to have either (or both) :
- user editable list of apps containing [DisplayName] and [pathprefix] so that you might display 'MPlayer' but pathprefix of 'mplayer -vo x11 ....' to load up command line.
- or i can read in and parse everything in the desktop files in /usr/share/applications/hildon is this the central place for operating system-level associations?

Also i would like the possibility to (instead of running a file on your hard drive) execute something like a url. So perhaps keep of list of urls/uris whatever that are saved in config file to be executed against mplayer or leafpad or browser.

Anyone know of programs doing this already?

Anyone with suggestions about how this should be laid out?

Anyone want to collaborate?

So far i have only I just have hardcoded list of apps like 'mplayer', 'leafpad', 'SciTE', etc and rough navigation throughout entire filesystem. Once both app and file are picked i just execute command line.

You can enable the built-in file manager to access the whole filesystem by creating a symbolic link in the MyDocs directory:

Then click "Root" on the file manager and you get to "/".

I thought i read there were issues with doung that. Something like metalayer crawler getting confused : http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list...velopers/25820

I'd probably write my on tree browswer or use enhanced file browser dialog though since that is key to app and shouldn't need xterm preparation before app is useful.

Still, if the symlink method works safely it would be nice to have this functionality system-wide. Are you currently using this? Any issue with files appearing twice in lists?

You're right. It worked fine until I rebooted. Now the CPU usage is constantly 100%. But I had the link there for several hours without causing any problems, so atleast it can be used as a temporary solution whenever needed.

Not actively, so I don't have any better experience about it.

Still not what you wanted but it is also possible to use the browser to browse local files, using the file:/// URL.

Nice... i wasnt aware that it could do that (file:///)

Both opera and microb have similar means but opera looks better.

So i guess out of the box you actually do have at least a browser for the structure of the entire filesystem although you need to know to enter that.

Thanks for that info... that could be useful in the future for quick browsing of directories (perhaps to even grab link locations to plug in elsewhere)

Well in ITT Forum terms, this is resurrecting an ancient thread

But I've got basic functionality working now... its just developed enough to warrant a menu item/deb installer so i made one thanks to PyPackager.

It's a utility (mostly for advanced users) which i named 'Splicer' for launching files with programs other than the associated default. This requires the program to accept command line parameters and some do not.

The programs you can send it to are kept in a list in /usr/lib/splicer/splicer.apps so you could edit that with splicer (choosing the that file name with one of the gtk file browsers and then picking leafpad to run against).

I support three file browsers since they all have advantages (speed/simplicity or full filesystem/hidden file support).

If your interested you can download it at :
http://wardenclyffetower.com/MaemoFi...er-1.1.all.deb

Although i have ctorrent in the list, by default it downloads to /home/user so in this version i would probably not use it even though it works for small files which would fit. If you try it then run it in xterm.

Default app list includes (mplayer, fbreader, leafpad, mc, vi, SciTE, more, unzip, unrar, python, and browser)

That's fine and very useful, but it seems that has problems passing file or directory names containing spaces. Could you fix it? Thanks

EDIT: python is really easy. I changed line 60 of your script as follows
and line 67

and now it gets also paths including spaces. At last, I can directly open my pdf files with evince!

Now, this must evolve into a full-fledged filesystem manager!

Thanks for your fix, I updated the installer to include that fix and i added evince to the apps list file.

I had originally started coding in c++/gtk and was going the route of using grome-vfs to 'build the tree' but then i ran into the TreeModel and oh my for a c# programmer to have to cripple my mind back to model/view c++ days... just hurt.

Your right though a directory treeview and filelist would be better (and probably easier in python... not sure about if all gnove vfs bindings are there tho... or if the gtkchoosers support hildonized windows)

It could also use
- a different shell function which doesn't 'wait' for result code... when running a program from utility the utility seems to 'hang' until you shut down the program launched.
- In-program editing of apps list (and maybe keep descriptions in addition to command line)
- Command lines could accept parameters like "cat %1 > tmp.txt"
- User specified 'run directory' to chdir into before running command.

Those are the items i hope to eventually put in there.

Thanks... if your feeling inspired and make any more fixes/enhancements please share

This is a neat program. What would REALLY make it useful is if you could associate file types with an application, not just files.

You could even have a checkbox when you select a file to open other files with the same file type with the assigned app.

I know nothing about writing programs so maybe thats a tall order.

Hope you don't mind the suggestion.