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I'm creating a desktop for Linux. As a result, I'm creating a utility called ts-open. However, when xdg-open is run, I want it to open ts-open when it detects that my desktop is running (just like it opens kde-open in KDE.) Is there a way to do this? If it has to be coded into xdg-open is there someone that I can speak to?

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  • Why don't you create a wrapper script called xdg-open that calls ts-open if your desktop is running and the regular xdg-open if it isn't? Is this something that has to ship with your software? Only for you? – terdon♦ Jan 12 '17 at 11:00
  • @terdon ts-open will ship with my software, and xdg-open will already be present on the system (probably in /usr/bin.) I'd like applications (like Chrome) that are already using xdg-open to open ts-open like in any other desktop environment. – Victor Tran Jan 12 '17 at 11:03
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You'd need to patch xdg-open to detect your desktop environment in detectDE(), and add an open_...() function that delegates to ts-open.

Once your DE is ready, you should contact the xdg-utils maintainers with a patch, either via a bug, or the mailing list.

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  • So just to make sure that I'm getting this right, I need to modify xdg-open myself, and then once it works, send the xdg-utils maintainers the modified version? – Victor Tran Jan 12 '17 at 11:51
  • Pretty much. "Once it works", and once your DE is released (and perhaps has traction...). You need to modify xdg-open yourself to test things while you're developing your DE anyway, but there's no point in submitting a patch until your DE is available to others. – Stephen Kitt Jan 12 '17 at 11:53
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With all the respect to OP and to accepted answer, since xdg-open actually opens anything with the x default application, could an alias possibly do the job?

The following test in my machine brings the taskmanager without a single warning....

$ alias xdg-open='xfce4-taskmanager'

So setting this alias xdg-open=ts-open when your DE is loaded and unalias xdg-open when your DE is exited, is not enough or i'm missing something ....?

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  • The problem is that I don't have control over that. For example, when I open Chrome, it internally uses xdg-open to open downloads. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to set an alias in every application that the user opens. :) – Victor Tran Jan 12 '17 at 23:23
  • @VictorTran I have the feeling that once such an alias is set, even if xdg-open is called internally by Chrome should be redirected to the alias of xdg-open (ts-open). But i'm not sure if it works like this. If you want you can give it a try in the meantime :-) . I am not sure how fast xdg devs will implement your request, this is why i'm thinking "workarounds". – George Vasiliou Jan 12 '17 at 23:31
  • I suppose it can't hurt to give it a try... :) – Victor Tran Jan 12 '17 at 23:35
  • @VictorTran Another workaround would be to implement the wrapper comment of terdon. You could build a script with name xdg-open that will point to ts-open, rename old xdg-open to i.e xdg-openn and as soon as users log-out from your DE revert everything back to previous state (remove your script from /usr/bin and rename again the xdg-openn to xdg-open) – George Vasiliou Jan 12 '17 at 23:36
  • Unfortunately my app doesn't have root access (and that's a good thing, isn't it?) so I won't be able to do that. – Victor Tran Jan 12 '17 at 23:39

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