VIS-OPEN(1)

📦
version 0.9.r531.gd89b6c27 · 5 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 vis-open(1) — Interactively select a file to open 💖

okay so this is the vis-open(1) page from the General Commands Manual, and it's literally your lil interactive file-picker bestie. 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

vis-open — interactively select a file to open. That's it, that's the vibe. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

vis-open [-p prompt] [-f] [--] [files]

vis-open -h

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

vis-open takes a list of filenames and directories on the command line and displays them in a menu so the user can select one. No cap. ✨ If the user selects a directory (including ..), the directory contents are displayed as a fresh menu. Once the user has selected a filename, its absolute path is printed to standard output.

vis-open uses vis-menu(1) as its user-interface, so see that page for more details. iykyk 👑

🎀 the options & args, bestie 🎀

  • -p prompt — Display prompt before the list of items. This is passed straight through to vis-menu(1). Cute prompt, zero extra processing. 💖
  • -f — Normally, if vis-open is provided with a single filename or directory argument, it will automatically select it (printing the filename to standard output, or presenting a new menu with the contents of the directory). If -f is provided, vis-open will always present the arguments it's given, even if there's only one. It's giving "bestie said show me everything." 💅
  • -- — If this token is encountered before the first non-option argument, all following arguments will be treated as menu-items, even if they would otherwise be valid command-line options. If encountered after the first non-option argument, or after a previous instance of --, it is treated as a menu-item. Periodt. 🎀
  • files — File and directory names to be presented to the user. If a name does not exist on the filesystem and the user selects it, it is treated as a file. Lowkey manifesting a file into existence, but only in the menu sense. 🦋
  • -h — If present, vis-open prints a usage summary and exits, ignoring any other flag and arguments. Main character "I'm leaving" energy. 💀

🎀 EXIT STATUS 🎀

The vis-open utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

In particular, like vis-menu(1), vis-open prints nothing and sets its exit status to 1 if the user refused to select a file. Not me getting ghosted by the menu 😭

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

             CHOICE=$(vis-open -p "Select a file to stat")
             if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
                     echo "No selection was made, or an error occurred"
             else
                     stat "$CHOICE"
             fi

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

vis(1), vis-menu(1)

💀 BUGS 💀

Because vis-open uses ls(1) to obtain the contents of a directory, weird things might happen if you have control-characters in your filenames. Like, genuinely weird 😭 not a vibe check you want to fail.

that's the whole page, bestie — made with 💜 from Vis v0.9-531-gd89b6c27-dirty, dated November 29, 2016 🎀

📦 where this page comes from