Launching WinXP applications

[Alex Rice]

On Tuesday, June 24, 2003, at 02:35  AM, Robert J. Earp wrote:

> I need to allow users to open a number of types of documents/media 
> etc. from within a stack.  That is, have the native application, such 
> as Word, Acrobat, Excel (and others) launch and then open the 
> appropriate data file.  And I need this to happen on whatever Win 
> machine the stack is running on.
>
> Launch does not seem to work within WinXP as it doesn't seem to know 
> where the apps are located.  I have the feeling I should be using the 
> queryRegistry command to locate the full path of the app, but my 
> problem is I don't know enough about the Registry to be able to find 
> the appropriate entries to query.
>
> Also, should I be checking for an app already being open ? That is, am 
> I going to risk having many copies of the same app open at the same 
> time ?  If so, any ideas how to do this ?
>
> Can anybody help please ??

Sorry to butt in with more questions...

How can one launch a file from Rev, with whatever is the default viewer 
for that file type? Every OS has a binding from file types to apps. If 
you double click on a PDF, a PDF viewer will open up, if a viewer is 
installed.

Neither "launch" nor "revGoURL" seem to address this particular need. 
Am I missing something?  On OS X there is a command line utility named, 
not surprisingly, "open".

"""
DESCRIPTION
      The open command opens a file (or a directory or URL), just as if 
you had
      double-clicked the file's icon. If no application name is 
specified, the
      default application as determined via LaunchServices is used to 
open the
      specified files.

      If the file is in the form of a URL, the file will be opened as a 
URL.

      You can specify one or more file names (or pathnames), which are 
inter-
      preted relative to the shell or Terminal window's current working 
direc-
      tory. For example, the following command would open all Word files 
in the
      current working directory:

      open *.doc
"""

Alex Rice, Software Developer
Architectural Research Consultants, Inc.
alrice at ARCplanning.com
alrice at swcp.com