GAPPLICATION(1) User Commands GAPPLICATION(1)
NAME
gapplication - D-Bus application launcher
SYNOPSIS
gapplication help [
COMMAND]
gapplication version
gapplication list-apps
gapplication launch
APPID gapplication launch
APPID [
FILE...]
gapplication list-actions
APPID gapplication action
APPID ACTION [
PARAMETER]
DESCRIPTION
gapplication is a commandline implementation of the client-side of
the org.freedesktop.Application interface as specified by the
freedesktop.org Desktop Entry Specification.
gapplication can be used to start applications that have
DBusActivatable set to true in their .desktop files and can be used
to send messages to already-running instances of other applications.
It is possible for applications to refer to
gapplication in the
Exec line of their .desktop file to maintain backwards compatibility with
implementations that do not directly support
DBusActivatable.
gapplication ships as part of GLib.
COMMANDS
Global commands
help [
COMMAND]
Displays a short synopsis of the available commands or provides
detailed help on a specific command.
version Prints the GLib version whence
gapplication came.
list-apps Prints a list of all application IDs that are known to support
D-Bus activation. This list is generated by scanning .desktop
files as per the current
XDG_DATA_DIRS.
launch APPID [
FILE...]
Launches an application.
The first parameter is the application ID in the familiar
"reverse DNS" style (eg: 'org.gnome.app') without the .desktop
suffix.
Optionally, if additional parameters are given, they are treated
as the names of files to open and may be filenames or URIs. If no
files are given then the application is simply activated.
list-actions APPID List the actions declared in the application's .desktop file. The
parameter is the application ID, as above.
action APPID ACTION [
PARAMETER]
Invokes the named action (in the same way as would occur when
activating an action specified in the .desktop file).
The application ID (as above) is the first parameter. The action
name follows.
Optionally, following the action name can be one parameter, in
GVariant format, given as a single argument. Make sure to use
sufficient quoting.
EXAMPLES
From the commandline
Launching an application:
gapplication launch org.example.fooview
Opening a file with an application:
gapplication launch org.example.fooview ~/file.foo
Opening many files with an application:
gapplication launch org.example.fooview ~/foos/*.foo
Invoking an action on an application:
gapplication action org.example.fooview create
Invoking an action on an application, with an action:
gapplication action org.example.fooview show-item '"item_id_828739"'
From the Exec lines of a .desktop file
The commandline interface of
gapplication was designed so that it
could be used directly from the
Exec line of a .desktop file.
You might want to do this to allow for backwards compatibility with
implementations of the specification that do not understand how to do
D-Bus activation, without having to install a separate utility
program.
Consider the following example:
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.1
Type=Application
Name=Foo Viewer
DBusActivatable=true
MimeType=image/x-foo;
Exec=gapplication launch org.example.fooview %F
Actions=gallery;create;
[Desktop Action gallery]
Name=Browse Gallery
Exec=gapplication action org.example.fooview gallery
[Desktop Action create]
Name=Create a new Foo!
Exec=gapplication action org.example.fooview create
From a script
If installing an application that supports D-Bus activation you may
still want to put a file in /usr/bin so that your program can be
started from a terminal.
It is possible for this file to be a shell script. The script can
handle arguments such as --help and --version directly. It can also
parse other command line arguments and convert them to uses of
gapplication to activate the application, open files, or invoke
actions.
Here is a simplified example, as may be installed in
/usr/bin/fooview:
#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
--help)
echo "see 'man fooview' for more information"
;;
--version)
echo "fooview 1.2"
;;
--gallery)
gapplication action org.example.fooview gallery
;;
--create)
gapplication action org.example.fooview create
;;
-*)
echo "unrecognised commandline argument"
exit 1
;;
*)
gapplication launch org.example.fooview "$@"
;;
esac
SEE ALSO
Desktop Entry Specification[1],
gdbus(1),
xdg-open(1),
desktop-file- validate(1)NOTES
1. Desktop Entry Specification
http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/
GIO GAPPLICATION(1)
