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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]

                   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.


                     --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)