Open a local file from a URL at a line number in an editor/IDE.

The idea is that you would register this application as a handler for certain URLs in your system.

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Please note that VSCode, IntelliJ, and Pycharm all install their own URL handlers for opening files: use these instead of this project! They open the files much more quickly and avoid all the hassle of configuring this project. For VSCode see docs, but the TL;DR is:

idea://open?file={absolute-path}&line={line-number}
pycharm://open?file={absolute-path}&line={line-number}
vscode://file/{absolute-path}:{line-number}

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The URL must be structured like a file URL, but it may optionally have a :<line>:<column> suffix. If the line is present, the editor will open the file at that line. (Column is currently only implemented for vim.)

The URL scheme (protocol) is ignored. For example, you could use standard file:// URLs, or you could use a custom URL scheme that only exists in your system. In either case, you must register open-in-editor (or the provided MacOS application) with your OS as the handler for that URL scheme.

Examples

# Using the standard "file://" scheme
open-in-editor 'file:///a/b/myfile.txt'
open-in-editor 'file:///a/b/myfile.txt:7'
open-in-editor 'file:///a/b/myfile.txt:7:77'
open-in-editor 'file://localhost/a/b/myfile.txt:7:77'

# Example of a custom URL scheme:
open-in-editor 'file-line-column:///a/b/myfile.txt'
open-in-editor 'file-line-column:///a/b/myfile.txt:7:77'

Installation

Download the open-in-editor file from this repo and make it executable.

Ensure that one of the environment variables OPEN_IN_EDITOR or EDITOR contains a path to an executable that open-in-editor is going to recognize. This environment variable must be set system-wide, not just in your shell process. For example, in MacOS, one does this with launchctl setenv EDITOR /path/to/my/editor/executable.

open-in-editor looks for any of the following substrings in the path: emacsclient (emacs), subl (sublime), charm (pycharm), vim (vim) or o (o). For example, any of the following values would work:

• /usr/local/bin/emacsclient
• /usr/local/bin/charm
• /Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl
• /usr/bin/vim
• /usr/local/bin/nvim
• /usr/bin/o

If your editor/IDE isn't supported, then please open an issue. If your editor/IDE is supported, but the above logic needs to be made more sophisticated, then either (a) open an issue, or (b) create a symlink that complies with the above rules.

Next, you need to register open-in-editor with your OS to act as the handler for the URL schemes you are going to use:

MacOS

For MacOS, an application bundle OpenInEditor.app is provided.

Use duti (brew install duti) to register the MacOS application (org.dandavison.OpenInEditor) as the handler for the URL schemes you want it to handle. For example, to make open-in-editor handle URLs of the form file-line-column:///a/b/myfile.txt:7:77, you would do:

duti -s org.dandavison.OpenInEditor file-line-column

If you need to rebuild the MacOS application bundle, you can do so using Platypus, with settings like this:

Alternatively, you can easily install open-in-editor with Homebrew (Cask), which already includes the above steps:

brew tap dandavison/open-in-editor https://github.com/dandavison/open-in-editor.git
brew install --cask open-in-editor

Also, if you keep a Brewfile, you can add something like this:

repo = "dandavison/open-in-editor"
tap repo, "https://github.com/#{repo}.git"
cask "open-in-editor"

Arch Linux

The Repository contains a pacman PKGBUILD file. To install it run from the root of the directory, or any directory that contains the PKGBUILD file.

makepkg --install

Then just register it with:

xdg-mime default open-in-editor.desktop x-scheme-handler/file-line-column

Linux

On a system that complies with the XDG shared MIME-info DB specification, you can follow the steps below. This should apply to the majority of current GNU/Linux installations - if you're unsure, run type -P xdg-mime and check that it returns a file path.

1. Create the directory ~/.local/share/applications/, if it doesn't exist already.

2. Create the file ~/.local/share/applications/augmented-open.desktop and add the following contents to it:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=AugmentedOpen
   GenericName=Open a file at a certain position
   Comment=Opens URLs of the type file-line-column://<path>[:<line>[:<column>]] in the configured editor and positions the cursor
   Icon=text-editor
   Exec=open-in-editor %U
   Categories=Utility;Core;
   StartupNotify=false
   MimeType=x-scheme-handler/file-line-column

3. Run the command

   xdg-mime default augmented-open.desktop x-scheme-handler/file-line-column

   This registers the augmented-open.desktop handler as the default handler for URLs using the file-line-column:// protocol.

The string used for the URL protocol is up to you: if you want to use open-in-editor to handle file:// URLs, then replace file-line-column with file in the above instructions.

If you want to register the URL handler system-wide (i.e. for every user) then create the file at /usr/local/... instead of ~/.local/.... You will need to use sudo to perform the commands since they will need root permissions.

Remember to define the EDITOR or OPEN_IN_EDITOR environment variable, if you haven't already done so.

You can now use these URLs by clicking on them in applications just like you would with a web link. From the command line, use xdg-open file[-line-column]://<path>[:line[:column]].

Windows

TODO