gapplication(1)

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)