bug#18132: Time for a smarter dired-guess-shell-alist-default? (dired-x.el)

[Reuben Thomas]

On 30 July 2014 17:32, Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org> wrote:

>> run-mailcap is fully supported by shell-command and async-shell-command where
>> the list of available commands can be accessed using M-n in its minibuffer.
>
> I can't see any mention of run-mailcap in the Emacs source; do you mean
> simply that it's possible to add it to the list of commands used?

grep -nH mailcap *.el
./dired-aux.el:558:(declare-function mailcap-file-default-commands "mailcap" (files))
./dired-aux.el:562:This function is used to add all related commands retrieved by `mailcap'
./dired-aux.el:565:  (let ((commands (and (boundp 'files) (require 'mailcap nil t)
./dired-aux.el:566:                    (mailcap-file-default-commands files))))
./simple.el:2743:(declare-function mailcap-file-default-commands "mailcap" (files))
./simple.el:2748:This function is used to add all related commands retrieved by `mailcap'
./simple.el:2754:        (commands (and filename (require 'mailcap nil t)
./simple.el:2755:                       (mailcap-file-default-commands (list filename)))))

I'm sorry if I've missed something, but I don't see what this has to do with run-mailcap.

 

We could leave the original list intact, and add xdg-open/w32-shell-execute
to the top of the list, so it would be the first suggestion that the user
will get after the first M-n.

It would be good to discourage customization of dired-guess-shell-alist-{default,user}, and steer users towards the non-program-specific mechanisms. It would also be good eventually not to have to maintain the list, or indeed the dired-guess-shell mechanism at all.

As for your mention of "the first M-n", as far as I can discover, the first time I press M-n, the default command, which was already mentioned in the prompt, is simply inserted at point, as if I had typed it. So is "the first suggestion that the user will get after the first M-n" actually the same thing as "the default suggestion"? (I hope so!)

 

There is a good example how to check its availability in
`browse-url-can-use-xdg-open' that could be moved
to a more general file like simple.el.

Thanks for the pointer.

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