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Re: 21.x feature request: windows shortcut support


From: David Masterson
Subject: Re: 21.x feature request: windows shortcut support
Date: 12 Oct 2001 15:40:01 -0700
User-agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7

>>>>> Jason Rumney writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>>> I'm not sure I understand. Windows itself uses file extensions to
>>> determine the file type. If .mailcap does not have the .lnk extension,
>>> then even Explorer will not recognize it as a shortcut, so there is no
>>> point in Emacs recognizing it as such.

>> If shortcuts are used only for executing a file,

> I am not sure that is correct. It may be Microsoft's design that
> they are only intended to be double-clicked with a mouse in order to
> execute the default application for a shortcut's target, but I see
> no reason why we should restrict Emacs to such a narrow use.

That doesn't appear to be the only use on Windows.  You can have a
shortcut to a text file (for instance).  When clicked on, it will
"Open" the text file (ie. invoke the editor [Notepad] on it).  A
shortcut has a "Target type" that tells Windows what to do with the
referenced file.  So, the two basic target types seem to be
"Application" and "Text file", but I suppose there could be others
("Printer" seems to also work).

>> then Emacs could handle it by specifying the optional suffix when
>> calling openp.

> I think there are two separate issues here. One is that Windows
> normally hides the .lnk suffix, so it may be friendlier to users to
> handle shortcuts without the need to specify the .lnk extension.
> If I'm not mistaken, that is what your suggestion above relates to.

> But before we solve that problem, we need to solve the problem that
> Emacs currently does not do anything useful if a shortcut is opened
> (it opens the binary shortcut file itself, where a more useful thing
> would be to open the target of the shortcut). I don't think this can
> be solved entirely within openp. If a shortcut is to a directory for
> example, it might be useful during completion to follow it as if it
> were a soft link.

Since a shortcut is more than just a soft link, I don't think
implementing shortcut support as an Emacs primitive will work
(something needs to interpret the "Target type").

-- 
David Masterson                dmaster AT synopsys DOT com
Sr. R&D Engineer               Synopsys, Inc.
Software Engineering           Sunnyvale, CA



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