The Command-Line is My File Chooser:

Like brian d foy, I have a lot of little command-line tools to make my life easier. Today, I wrote two more.

One of the parts of Mac OS X I actually miss (and there are a few) is its open command that examines a named file and attempts to open it in an appropriate application. That's an easy program to write, if you aim for 80% effectiveness, but it's so convenient that when I found myself wishing for it today, I spent five minutes writing it.

#!/usr/bin/perl

 use strict;
use warnings;

 use File::MMagic;

 my $file     = shift or die "Usage: $0 <filename>\n";

 my %subtypes = map { $_ => 1 } 'application/x-zip', 'text/plain', 'text/html';
my %apps     =
(
	'application/star-office'  => 'xooffice',
	'application/msword'       => 'abiword-2.0',
	'application/mozilla'      => 'moz_tab',
	'image/jpeg'               => 'eog',
	'image/gif'                => 'eog',
	'text/html'                => 'moz_tab',
);
my %exts     = 
(
	'application/star-office', => qr/\.sxw\Z/, 
	'application/mozilla',     => qr/\.html?\Z/i, 
);

 my $mm       = File::MMagic->new();

 while (my ($subtype, $regex) = each %exts)
{
	$mm->addFileExts( $regex, $subtype );
}

 my $type     = $mm->checktype_filename(   $file );
$type        = $mm->checktype_byfilename( $file ) if exists $subtypes{ $type };

 die "Unknown type '$type'\n" unless exists $apps{ $type };

 fork and exit;
exec $apps{$type}, $file, @ARGV;

It's worth factoring out the file types, applications, and subtypes into data somewhere, but when I find myself needing to maintain a bigger list, I'll do that.

You might notice a program called moz_tab. What does that do? I usually have Mozilla running with several tabs on a different virtual desktop. (Now you begin to see what I missed from a real window manager when I used Mac OS X!) I do want to open HTML files in Mozilla, but I don't want to open them in a new browser window or, worse, with a different profile. moz_tab checks to see if there's an existing window and opens a new tab or a window as appropriate.

#!/bin/sh

 # create an absolute path
DIR=`pwd`
FILE="$DIR/$1"

 # check if Mozilla is already running
/usr/bin/mozilla -remote 'ping()'
STATUS=$?

 # launch a new tab, if so
if [ "$STATUS" == 0 ]; then
	exec /usr/bin/mozilla -remote "openurl(file://$FILE,new-tab)"
fi

 # or launch a new window
exec /usr/bin/mozilla "file://$FILE"

It doesn't check for an absolute path before absolutifying the path, but if I need that, I'll add another line.

Having both of these programs available has saved me almost a minute today. That doesn't seem like much, but keep in mind that I'd have spent that minute navigating developer-hostile file chooser windows. If I can avoid that by using the developer-friendly command line in a ubiquitous terminal window, my life is much more pleasant.