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xdg-open-wsl

xdg-open-wsl is an xdg-open replacement for WSL that opens files and links using Windows apps.

For WSL apps using X, e.g. emacs, this enables the opening of files using the relevant Windows tool.

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Installation.

Until I publish to pypi, the easiest is option 1.

Option 1: Install from github using pip.

# make sure you have the latest pip
# NOTE: you HAVE to do this upgrade, else pip install won't know what to do without setup.py!
pip3 install --user --upgrade pip
# install xdg-open-wsl using your latest pip
pip install --user git+https://github.com/cpbotha/xdg-open-wsl.git
# ensure that the newly installed xdg-open is active
# the following command should show something like /home/username/.local/bin/xdg-open
which xdg-open

Option 2: Use the main script directly.

Download only the xdg_open_wsl.py script and save it as xdg-open into your ~/.local/bin/ or ~/bin/, whichever is in your PATH before any system xdg-open.

Ensure with which xdg-open that your new xdg-open is preferred.

FAQ.

Does this work for Emacs on WSL?

Why yes, of course it does. This is also why I wrote this in the first place.

Importantly, there is a "bug" somewhere between Emacs and the WSL which will cause org-open-file to block forever.

Follow the advice in my blog post Patch Emacs org-open-file using advice to fix this behaviour.

In short, simply add this to your init.el:

;; fix org-open-file for wsl by temporarily replacing start-process-shell-command with call-process-shell-command
;; if we don't do this, emacs on WSL will block forever trying to open exported file with windows handler
(defun wsl-fix-org-open-file (orig-org-open-file &rest args)
  ;; temporarily replace function,
  ;; see https://endlessparentheses.com/understanding-letf-and-how-it-replaces-flet.html
  (cl-letf (((symbol-function 'start-process-shell-command) #'call-process-shell-command))
    (apply orig-org-open-file args)))

(advice-add #'org-open-file :around #'wsl-fix-org-open-file)