Re: double-click or return in dired to launch application

[Joel Smith <joelvsmith@earthlink.net>]

Benjamin Rutt <brutt+news@bloomington.in.us> writes:

> Joel Smith <joelvsmith@earthlink.net> writes:
> 
> > is it possible to double-click on a file in dired and have it launch
> > an application, i.e. click on a .doc document and word opens with
> > the document.  i'm using emacsnt, but it would be interesting to set
> > this up at home on my linux box as well.  thanks.
> 
> I have the following set up to do file associations and actions:
> 
> (setq dired-guess-shell-alist-user
>       '(("\\.jpe?g\\'" "xli")
> 	("\\.gif\\'" "xli")
> 	("\\.pdf\\'" "acroread")
> 	("\\.pdf.gz\\'" "gv")
> 	("\\.ps.gz\\'" "gv")
> 	("\\.ps\\'" "gv")))
> 
> which allows me to specify what happens when I apply the ! key in
> dired to a specific file.  I suppose you could add something like
> 
>     ("\\.doc\\'" "start")
> 
> to that list in windows and it should work (use "ooffice" instead of
> "start" in linux).  Then, you could press ! RET on one of those files.
> I'm not sure if that's what you want.
> 
> As to how to get it to work from a double-click, I'm not sure if it's
> possible or not to intercept double-clicks, anyone?
> -- 
> Benjamin

I put in dired-x and added dired-guess-shell-alist-user to my .emacs like

 (add-hook 'dired-load-hook
           (function (lambda ()
                       (load "dired-x")
                       ;; Set global variables here.  For example:
                       ;; (setq dired-guess-shell-gnutar "gtar")
		       (setq dired-guess-shell-alist-user
			     '(("\\.jpe?g\\'" "xli")
			       ("\\.pdf\\'" "Acrobat")
			       ("\\.pdf.gz\\'" "gsview32")
			       ("\\.ps.gz\\'" "gsview32")
			       ("\\.doc\\'" "start")
			       ("\\.ps\\'" "gsview32")))
                       )))

I type ! RET and a word document appeared on the screen.  wow!  but the only 
problem is that when the word document is open, emacs freezes until the 
process is closed.  How do I run these things in the background?  

I'm not sure how to use the double-click response, i.e. how to use 
dired-do-shell-command with the list provided by dired-guess-shell-alist-user.
i'll stick with the first method provided i can run things in the background.
Thanks for the help.