xon

Implementation of xdg-open in Nim.

Overview

xon is a lightweight xdg-open replacement written in Nim. It inspects the MIME type of the file/URI provided and matches it against user-defined patterns from a configuration file. Based on the matching criteria and enabled contexts, xon runs the associated command.

Usage

Command-Line Usage

You can invoke xon directly from the command line. It requires two arguments:

• The path to the configuration file (in JSON format).
• The file or URI to be opened.

Example:

./xon config.json /path/to/file.txt

If the file exists, xon determines its MIME type (using the configured mime_query), matches it against defined patterns in the configuration, and executes the associated command for the first enabled context.

Desktop Environment Integration

Many desktop environments use xdg-open to open files with their default applications. To use xon as a replacement, adjust your desktop environment's file association settings or create a wrapper script that points to xon.

For systems using .desktop files, you can change the Exec line. For example:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=xon
Exec=/path/to/xon /path/to/config.json %u
MimeType=...

Alternatively, you can symlink xon to xdg-open to tell your desktop environment to call xon whenever a file is opened via xdg-open:

sudo ln -s /path/to/xon /usr/local/bin/xdg-open

xon uses a JSON configuration file.

• placeholder: A string used in commands as a placeholder for the file/URI.
• mime_query: A command used to detect the file's MIME type if the file exists.
• contexts: A set of options that allow you to enable or disable specific association contexts.
• targets: A list of target objects; each object specifies:
  • patterns: An array of regex patterns to match MIME types or URIs.
  • associations: A mapping of context names to shell commands. The command should include the placeholder where the file path needs to be substituted.

Build

To build xon, make sure you have the Nim compiler installed, and run the following commands in your terminal:

nim c -d:release xon.nim

To install xon system-wide:

sudo cp xon /usr/local/bin/