Gnome::Gio::AppInfo

Application information and launch contexts

Description

Gnome::Gio::AppInfo and Gnome::Gio::AppLaunchContext are used for describing and launching applications installed on the system.

As of GLib 2.20, URIs will always be converted to POSIX paths (using Gnome::Gio::File.get-path()) when using launch() even if the application requested a URI and not a POSIX path. For example, for a desktop-file based application with the Exec key totem %U and a single URI, sftp://foo/file.avi, then /home/user/.gvfs/sftp on foo/file.avi will be passed. This will only work if a set of suitable GIO extensions (such as gvfs 2.26 compiled with FUSE support), is available and operational; if this is not the case, the URI will be passed unmodified to the application. Some URIs, such as mailto:, of course cannot be mapped to a POSIX path (in gvfs there’s no FUSE mount for it); such URIs will be passed unmodified to the application.

Synopsis

Declaration

unit class Gnome::Gio::AppInfo;
also is Gnome::GObject::Object;

Uml Diagram

Note

Gnome::Gio::AppInfo is defined as an interface in the Gnome libraries and therefore should be defined as a Raku role. However, the Gtk modules like Gnome::Gtk3::AppChooser ** returns **Gnome::Gio::AppInfo objects as if they are class objects. The only one which use the module as an interface, is GDesktopAppInfo which will not be implemented for the time being. When it does, it will inherit it as a class.

Example

Below code will work when both cdda://sr0/Track 1.wav and /home/user/.gvfs/cdda on sr0/Track 1.wav is passed to the application. It should be noted that it’s generally not safe for applications to rely on the format of a particular URIs. Different launcher applications (e.g. file managers) may have different ideas of what a given URI means.

my Gnome::Gio::File $file .= new(
  :commandline-arg($uri-from-commandline)
);

# you might compare $uri with $uri-from-commandline
# to see that they are equal;
my Str $uri = $file.get-uri;

if ( $file.has-uri-scheme('cdda') ) {
    … do something special with uri …
}

$file.clear-object;

Methods

new

:command-line, :application-name, :flags

Create a new Gnome::Gio::AppInfo object. Note that for commandline, the quoting rules of the Exec key of the freedesktop.org Desktop Entry Specification are applied. For example, if the commandline contains percent-encoded URIs, the percent-character must be doubled in order to prevent it from being swallowed by Exec key unquoting. See the specification for exact quoting rules.

multi method new (
  Str :$command-line!, Str :$application-name!,
  UInt :$flags = G_APP_INFO_CREATE_NONE
)

:native-object

Create a Gnome::Gio::AppInfo object using a native object from elsewhere. See also Gnome::N::TopLevelClassSupport.

multi method new ( N-GObject :$native-object! )

add-supports-type

Adds a content type to the application information to indicate the application is capable of opening files with the given content type.

Returns True if successful, False if an error is set. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

method add-supports-type ( Str $content-type --> Bool )

Str $content-type; a string.

can-delete

Obtains the information whether the Gnome::Gio::AppInfo can be deleted. See delete().

Returns: True if appinfo can be deleted

method can-delete ( --> Bool )

can-remove-supports-type

Checks if a supported content type can be removed from an application.

Returns: True if it is possible to remove supported content types from a given appinfo, False if not.

method can-remove-supports-type ( --> Bool )

delete

Tries to delete a Gnome::Gio::AppInfo.

On some platforms, there may be a difference between user-defined Gnome::Gio::AppInfos which can be deleted, and system-wide ones which cannot. See can-delete().

Returns: True if appinfo has been deleted

method delete ( --> Bool )

get-all

Gets a list of all of the applications currently registered on this system.

For desktop files, this includes applications that have NoDisplay=true set or are excluded from display by means of OnlyShowIn or NotShowIn. See .should-show(). The returned list does not include applications which have the Hidden key set.

Returns a newly allocated list of references to Gnome::Gio::AppInfos.

method get-all ( --> Gnome::Glib::List )

get-all-for-type

Gets a list of all Gnome::Gio::AppInfos for a given content type, including the recommended and fallback GAppInfos. See .get-recommended-for-type() and get-fallback-for-type().

method get-all-for-type ( Str $content-type --> Gnome::Glib::List )

Str $content-type;

get-commandline

Gets the commandline with which the application will be started.

Returns: (type filename): a string containing the appinfo’s commandline, or undefined if this information is not available

method get-commandline ( --> Str )

get-default-for-type, get-default-for-type-rk

Gets the default Gnome::Gio::AppInfo for a given content type.

method get-default-for-type (
  Str $content-type, Bool $must_support_uris
  --> N-GObject
)

method get-default-for-type-rk (
  Str $content-type, Bool $must_support_uris
  --> Gnome::Gio::AppInfo
)

Str $content-type;
Bool $must_support_uris;

get-default-for-uri-scheme, get-default-for-uri-scheme-rk

Gets the default application for handling URIs with the given URI scheme. A URI scheme is the initial part of the URI, up to but not including the ‘:’, e.g. “http”, “ftp” or “sip”.

method get-default-for-uri-scheme ( Str $uri_scheme --> N-GObject )

method get-default-for-uri-scheme-rk (
  Str $uri_scheme --> Gnome::Gio::AppInfo
)

Str $uri_scheme;

get-description

Gets a human-readable description of an installed application.

Returns: a string containing a description of the application appinfo, or undefined if none.

method get-description ( --> Str )

get-display-name

Gets the display name of the application. The display name is often more descriptive to the user than the name itself.

Returns: the display name of the application for appinfo, or the name if no display name is available.

method get-display-name ( --> Str )

get-executable

Gets the executable’s name for the installed application.

Returns: (type filename): a string containing the appinfo’s application binaries name

method get-executable ( --> Str )

get-fallback-for-type

Gets a list of fallback Gnome::Gio::AppInfos for a given content type, i.e. those applications which claim to support the given content type by MIME type subclassing and not directly.

method get-fallback-for-type ( Str $content-type --> Gnome::Glib::List )

Str $content-type;

get-icon

Gets the icon for the application.

Returns: the default Gnome::Gio::Icon for appinfo or undefined if there is no default icon.

method get-icon ( --> N-GObject )

get-id

Gets the ID of an application. An id is a string that identifies the application. The exact format of the id is platform dependent. For instance, on Unix this is the desktop file id from the xdg menu specification.

Note that the returned ID may be undefined, depending on how the appinfo has been constructed.

Returns: a string containing the application’s ID.

method get-id ( --> Str )

get-name

Gets the installed name of the application.

Returns: the name of the application for appinfo.

method get-name ( --> Str )

get-recommended-for-type

Gets a list of recommended Gnome::Gio::AppInfos for a given content type, i.e. those applications which claim to support the given content type exactly, and not by MIME type subclassing. Note that the first application of the list is the last used one, i.e. the last one for which set_as_last_used_for_type() has been called.

method get-recommended-for-type ( Str $content-type --> Gnome::Glib::List )

Str $content-type;

get-supported-types

Retrieves the list of content types that app-info claims to support. If this information is not provided by the environment, this function will return undefined. This function does not take in consideration associations added with add-supports-type(), but only those exported directly by the application.

Returns: a list of content types.

method get-supported-types ( --> Array )

launch

Launches the application. Passes f@iles to the launched application as arguments, using the optional $context to get information about the details of the launcher (like what screen it is on). On error, error will be set accordingly.

To launch the application without arguments pass an empty @files list.

Note that even if the launch is successful the application launched can fail to start if it runs into problems during startup. There is no way to detect this.

The launched application inherits the environment of the launching process, but it can be modified with Gnome::Gio::AppLaunchContext.setenv() and Gnome::Gio::AppLaunchContext.unsetenv().

On UNIX, this function sets the GIO-LAUNCHED-DESKTOP-FILE environment variable with the path of the launched desktop file and GIO-LAUNCHED-DESKTOP-FILE-PID to the process id of the launched process. This can be used to ignore GIO-LAUNCHED-DESKTOP-FILE, should it be inherited by further processes. The DISPLAY and DESKTOP-STARTUP-ID environment variables are also set, based on information provided in context.

Returns True if the launch was successful, False if an error is set. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

method launch (
  @files, N-GObject $context --> Bool
)

Str @files; list of filenames
N-GObject $context; a native Gnome::Gio::AppLaunchContext or undefined

launch-default-for-uri

Utility function that launches the default application registered to handle the specified uri. Synchronous I/O is done on the uri to detect the type of the file if required.

The D-Bus–activated applications don’t have to be started if your application terminates too soon after this function. To prevent this, use launch-default-for-uri-async() instead.

Returns True if the launch was successful, False if an error is set. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

method launch-default-for-uri (
  Str $uri, N-GObject $context --> Bool
)

Str $uri; the uri to show
N-GObject $context; an optional Gnome::Gio::AppLaunchContext
N-GError $error; return location for an error, or undefined

Note There are situations where a False value is returned but the error object was not set. False is returned correctly in those cases and there is really something wrong but the function doesn’t reveal what.

launch-uris

Launches the application. This passes the uris to the launched application as arguments, using the optional context to get information about the details of the launcher (like what screen it is on). On error, error will be set accordingly.

To launch the application without arguments pass a undefined uris list.

Note that even if the launch is successful the application launched can fail to start if it runs into problems during startup. There is no way to detect this.

Returns True if the launch was successful, False if an error is set. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

method launch-uris ( @uris, N-GObject $context --> Bool )

Str @uris; an array containing URIs to launch.
N-GObject $context; a Gnome::Gio::AppLaunchContext or undefined

remove-supports-type

Removes a supported type from an application, if possible.

Returns: True on success, False on error.

method remove-supports-type ( Str $content-type --> Bool )

Returns True if successful, False if an error is set. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

Str $content-type; a string.

reset-type-associations

Removes all changes to the type associations done by .set_as_default_for_type(), .set_as_default_for_extension(), .add_supports_type() or .remove_supports_type().

method reset-type-associations ( Str $content-type )

Str $content-type;

set-as-default-for-extension

Sets the application as the default handler for the given file extension.

Returns: True on success, False on error. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

method set-as-default-for-extension ( Str $extension --> Bool )

Str $extension; a string containing the file extension (without the dot).

set-as-default-for-type

Sets the application as the default handler for a given type.

Sets the $.last-error attribute which will be invalid on successful launch, valid otherwise and the error object must be checked for the error. Check the .message() of this object to see what happened.

method set-as-default-for-type ( Str $content-type --> Bool )

Example

This example shows how to set the default command of a jpeg image to the execution of ls -m, a unix directory list command.

$ai .= new( :command-line('ls -m'), :application-name('ls'));
die $ai.last-error.message
  unless $ai.set-as-default-for-type('image/jpeg');

Str $content-type; the content type.

set-as-last-used-for-type

Sets the application as the last used application for a given type. This will make the application appear as first in the list returned by get-recommended-for-type(), regardless of the default application for that content type.

Returns True if successful, False if an error is set. When False, Check the error attribute $.last-error for failures.

method set-as-last-used-for-type ( Str $content-type --> Bool )

Str $content-type; the content type.

should-show

Checks if the application info should be shown in menus that list available applications.

Returns: True if the appinfo should be shown, False otherwise.

method should-show ( --> Bool )

supports-files

Checks if the application accepts files as arguments.

Returns: True if the appinfo supports files.

method supports-files ( --> Bool )

supports-uris

Checks if the application supports reading files and directories from URIs.

Returns: True if the appinfo supports URIs.

method supports-uris ( --> Bool )

Gnome::Gio::AppInfo

Description

See Also

Synopsis

Declaration

Uml Diagram

Note

Example

Methods

new

:command-line, :application-name, :flags

:native-object

add-supports-type

can-delete

can-remove-supports-type

delete

get-all

get-all-for-type

get-commandline

get-default-for-type, get-default-for-type-rk

get-default-for-uri-scheme, get-default-for-uri-scheme-rk

get-description

get-display-name

get-executable

get-fallback-for-type

get-icon

get-id

get-name

get-recommended-for-type

get-supported-types

launch

launch-default-for-uri

launch-uris

remove-supports-type

reset-type-associations

set-as-default-for-extension

set-as-default-for-type

Example

set-as-last-used-for-type

should-show

supports-files

supports-uris