dired "!" hints baffled by multiple sources of same answer

dired "!" hints baffled by multiple sources of same answer

[Dan Jacobson]

In dired, mark 3 *.gifs and hit !
   ! on * [3 files]: [xloadimage]
it wisely suggests.
Now mark a fourth, a *.jpg
   ! on * [4 files]:
Ah ha... bzzzzt.  No helpful guess now. Pure *.gifs: xloadimage. Pure
*.jpgs: xloadimage.  Mixed: that does not compute.  Like take me back
to the repairshop.
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

Re: dired "!" hints baffled by multiple sources of same answer

[Dan Jacobson]

DJ>     In dired, mark 3 *.gifs and hit !
DJ>        ! on * [3 files]: [xloadimage]

RMS> That isn't part of standard Dired.

Excuses, excuses.  Does not dired-x-submit-report send to this same
mailing list?  Indeed,
;; Maintainer: FSF (unless Dodd can be found)

4 lines matching "please" in buffer dired-x.el.
     37:;; Please, PLEASE, *PLEASE* see the info pages.
     57:;; bind some dired keys.  *Please* see the info pages for more details.
     59:;; *Please* see the info pages for more details.
     83:;; the end of any of the variable names, and hit C-h v [RET].  *Please* see

OK, I would but the dired-x Shell Command Guessing etc. info node are
not in the emacs info tree but instead next to it, at least on debian.

There it says "Dired only tries to guess a command for a single file, never for a
list of marked files." but in fact it does, if the marked files have
the same suffix it seems. But if it plans to use xloadimage on .jpg's
and use xloadimage on .gif's, then it should use xloadimage when
presented with a list that are all .jpg's and .gif's.
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

Re: dired "!" hints baffled by multiple sources of same answer

[Kevin Rodgers]

Dan Jacobson wrote:

> OK, I would but the dired-x Shell Command Guessing etc. info node are
> not in the emacs info tree but instead next to it, at least on debian.
> 
> [the dired-x Shell Command Guessing etc. info node] says "Dired only tries to guess a command for a single file, never for a
> list of marked files." but in fact it does, if the marked files have
> the same suffix it seems. But if it plans to use xloadimage on .jpg's
> and use xloadimage on .gif's, then it should use xloadimage when
> presented with a list that are all .jpg's and .gif's.

dired-x.el says:


;;; * Parse `dired-guess-shell-alist-user' and
;;;   `dired-guess-shell-alist-default' (in that order) for the first REGEXP
;;;   that matches the first file in the file list.
;;;
;;; * If the REGEXP matches all the entries of the file list then evaluate
;;;   COMMAND, which is either a string or a Lisp expression returning a
;;;   string.  COMMAND may be a list of commands.


What are dired-guess-shell-alist-user and dired-guess-shell-alist-default set
to?  If they have an entry like

	("\\.\\(gif\\|jpg\\)\\'" . "xloadimage")

instead of (or in front of) 2 separate entries for GIF and JPEG files, then it
should work the way you want.

-- 
<a href="mailto:&lt;kevin.rodgers&#64;ihs.com&gt;">Kevin Rodgers</a>

Re: dired "!" hints baffled by multiple sources of same answer

[Dan Jacobson]

>> [the dired-x Shell Command Guessing etc. info node] says "Dired only
>> tries to guess a command for a single file, never for a
>> list of marked files." but in fact it does, if the marked files have
>> the same suffix it seems.

so say so in Info

>> But if it plans to use xloadimage on .jpg's and use xloadimage on
>> .gif's, then it should use xloadimage when presented with a list
>> that are all .jpg's and .gif's.

K> dired-x.el says:
K> ;;; * Parse `dired-guess-shell-alist-user' and
K> ;;;   `dired-guess-shell-alist-default' (in that order) for the first REGEXP
K> ;;;   that matches the first file in the file list.
K> ;;;
K> ;;; * If the REGEXP matches all the entries of the file list then evaluate
K> ;;;   COMMAND, which is either a string or a Lisp expression returning a
K> ;;;   string.  COMMAND may be a list of commands.


K> What are dired-guess-shell-alist-user and dired-guess-shell-alist-default set
K> to?  If they have an entry like

K> 	("\\.\\(gif\\|jpg\\)\\'" . "xloadimage")

K> instead of (or in front of) 2 separate entries for GIF and JPEG files, then it
K> should work the way you want.

Well they aren't so it doesn't:
$ grep xloadim /usr/share/emacs/21.2/lisp/dired-x.el
   '("\\.e?ps$" "ghostview" "xloadimage" "lpr")
   '("\\.p[bgpn]m$" "xloadimage")
   '("\\.gif$" "xloadimage")                    ; view gif pictures
   '("\\.tif$" "xloadimage")
   '("\\.png$" "display")               ; xloadimage 4.1 doesn't grok PNG
   '("\\.jpg$" "xloadimage")

So, the dired-x fellow should either make them all into (xxx|yyy|zzz)
stings, less ideal; or more ideal, do a better matching scheme...

also allow case insensitivity, so one can also match .JPG's
etc. without having to write everything twice.