oracular (1) gapplication.1.gz

NAME

       gapplication - D-Bus application launcher

SYNOPSIS

       gapplication help [COMMAND]
       gapplication version
       gapplication list-apps
       gapplication launch <APP-ID>
       gapplication launch <APP-ID> [FILE…]
       gapplication list-actions <APP-ID>
       gapplication action <APP-ID> <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

       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 <APP-ID> [FILE…]
          Launches an application.

          The  first  parameter  is  the application ID in the familiar ‘reverse DNS’ style (e.g. 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 <APP-ID>
          List the actions declared in the application’s .desktop file.  The parameter is the application ID, as
          above.

       action <APP-ID> <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 "unrecognized commandline argument"
              exit 1
              ;;

            *)
              gapplication launch org.example.fooview "$@"
              ;;
          esac

SEE ALSO

       Desktop Entry Specification <https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/> ,
        <gdbus(1)> ,
        <xdg-open(1)> ,
        <desktop-file-validate(1)>

                                                                                                  GAPPLICATION()