[Alpine-info] Opening attachments with OpenOffice

[David Morris]

Your theory makes sense from my general system view of how such things
are done but no specific experience.

Perhaps Open Office has an option to use a new process for documents?
Or a 'wait' option. Some GUI applications I've basically disconnect
the parent from the 'terminal' which results in a process exit and
the Alpine behavior you describe. As an example, I used textmate
as my svn editor on MacOSX and I have to use a special textmate
command to keep it from from looking like it exits to subversion.

On Thu, 8 Apr 2010, Mirko Hessel-von Molo wrote:
 

> Dear Alpinists, 

> 

> working on Ubuntu 9.10, I open "Office-type" (i. e. MS Office and OOO

> documents) attachments with OpenOffice 3.1, using e. g. the following

> entries in /etc/mailcap:

> 

> Application/VND.OPENXMLFORMATS-OFFICEDOCUMENT.WORDPROCESSINGML.DOCUMENT; soffice -writer '%s'; edit=soffice -no-oosplash -writer '%s'; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"; description="Word 2007 Text

> Document"; nametemplate=%s.docx

> application/msword; soffice -writer '%s'; edit=soffice -no-oosplash -writer '%s'; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"; description="Microsoft Word Document"; nametemplate=%s.doc

> 

> 

> /usr/bin/soffice links to the appropriate OpenOffice binary. 

> 

> With this setup, I observe the following behaviour:

> 

> When I have no instance of OpenOffice running, everything works fine.

> 

> When I have an instance running, Alpines messages to me are the same as in

> the other case (and as always), but OpenOffice responds with an error

> message saying "file /tmp/img-XXXXXXXXX.doc not found" (or rather, the

> equivalent in German). I have to close OpenOffice completely and to issue

> the "View" command on that attachment again to see it. 

> 

> Needless to say this is a nuisance when I'm working on several documents,

> or want to compare several attachments, or...

> 

> I didn't observe this behaviour on Debian Lenny, and I'm not sure whether

> it is an Ubuntu problem or an Alpine problem, but I have a theory how this

> behaviour might arise that says the cause may be "in between". Only I

> don't know how to check it, and also I can't see a way to work around in

> case my theory is correct...

> 

> My theory is as following:

> Before issueing the command from the mailcap line, Alpine saves the

> attachment to a temporary file in /tmp/, then calls the viewer program,

> and when that process exits, it deletes the file in /tmp again. 

> 

> Now, when an instance of OOO is running, a new process is started by

> alpine, but this process exists very quickly, living only to see another

> instance of OOO is there and to tell it to take over the job (however that

> is done). So, the alpine-started OOO process exits, and alpine deletes the

> file in /tmp. This happens before the original OOO processes comes to the

> point where it tries to open that file, which is why it complains the file

> is not there.

> 

> My questions now are:

> 

> 1. Those of you who know Alpine's internals: Is this theory possibly true?

> 2. How could I check whether it is?

> 3. If not, what else might be the reason?

> 4. In any case, how could I work around it?

> 

> 

> Thanks for any answer, 

> 

> best regards, 

> 

>         Mirko

> 

> 

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Dr. Mirko Hessel-von Molo                          Office: D3.207

> University of Paderborn, Institute for Mathematics Tel   : +49 5251 60 3774

> Applied Mathematics                                Fax   : +49 5251 60 4216

> 33095 Paderborn                                    Email : mirkoh at upb.de

> 

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