On 30 July 2014 00:49, Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org> wrote:

> > These days, there are mature programs for launching an arbitrary file
> with
> > an appropriate viewer: run-mailcap (which is mature to the point of
> > obsolescence) and
>
> 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?


> > xdg-open on GNU systems; open on Mac OS X; start on MS Windows).
>
> xdg-open is a single command that is too easy to add to the top of this
> list.
>

Did you mean "easy too"?

So, yes, both of these commands can be added.

My original point is that they're not currently used; instead there is a
custom list that has to be configured separately by the user from either of
these.

Hence, I suggest using these commands (and similarly "open" on Mac OS, and,
as per Eli's suggestion, w32-shell-execute on Windows) instead of the
current contents of dired-guess-shell-alist-default.

Since each of these commands tackles all file types, it would seem simplest
to add a new function shell-execute, modelled on w32-shell-execute, and
have dired-read-shell-command use that instead of
dired-guess-shell-command, which could then become an option that
shell-execute can be configured to use, for those who are used to it.

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