mutt/mutt_bgrun

   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 # @(#) mutt_bgrun $Revision: 1.4 $
   3
   4 #   mutt_bgrun - run an attachment viewer from mutt in the background
   5 #   Copyright (C) 1999-2002 Gary A. Johnson
   6 #
   7 #   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
   8 #   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   9 #   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
  10 #   (at your option) any later version.
  11 #
  12 #   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  13 #   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  14 #   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  15 #   GNU General Public License for more details.
  16 #
  17 #   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  18 #   along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  19 #   Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.
  20
  21 # SYNOPSIS
  22 #       mutt_bgrun viewer [viewer options] file
  23 #
  24 # DESCRIPTION
  25 #       Mutt invokes external attachment viewers by writing the
  26 #       attachment to a temporary file, executing the pipeline specified
  27 #       for that attachment type in the mailcap file, waiting for the
  28 #       pipeline to terminate, writing nulls over the temporary file,
  29 #       then deleting it.  This causes problems when using graphical
  30 #       viewers such as qvpview and acroread to view attachments.
  31 #
  32 #       If qvpview, for example, is executed in the foreground, the mutt
  33 #       user interface is hung until qvpview exits, so the user can't do
  34 #       anything else with mutt until he or she finishes reading the
  35 #       attachment and exits qvpview.  This is especially annoying when
  36 #       a message contains several MS Office attachments--one would like
  37 #       to have them all open at once.
  38 #
  39 #       If qvpview is executed in the background, it must be given
  40 #       enough time to completely read the file before returning control
  41 #       to mutt, since mutt will then obliterate the file.  Qvpview is
  42 #       so slow that this time can exceed 20 seconds, and the bound is
  43 #       unknown.  So this is again annoying.
  44 #
  45 #       The solution provided here is to invoke the specified viewer
  46 #       from this script after first copying mutt's temporary file to
  47 #       another temporary file.  This script can then quickly return
  48 #       control to mutt while the viewer can take as much time as it
  49 #       needs to read and render the attachment.
  50 #
  51 # EXAMPLE
  52 #       To use qvpview to view MS Office attachments from mutt, add the
  53 #       following lines to mutt's mailcap file.
  54 #
  55 #       application/msword;             mutt_bgrun qvpview %s
  56 #       application/vnd.ms-excel;       mutt_bgrun qvpview %s
  57 #       application/vnd.ms-powerpoint;  mutt_bgrun qvpview %s
  58 #
  59 # AUTHOR
  60 #       Gary A. Johnson
  61 #       <garyjohn@spk.agilent.com>
  62 #
  63 # ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  64 #       My thanks to the people who have commented on this script and
  65 #       offered solutions to shortcomings and bugs, especially Edmund
  66 #       GRIMLEY EVANS <edmundo@rano.org> and Andreas Somogyi
  67 #       <aso@somogyi.nu>.
  68
  69 prog=${0##*/}
  70
  71 # Check the arguments first.
  72
  73 if [ "$#" -lt "2" ]
  74 then
  75     echo "usage: $prog viewer [viewer options] file" >&2
  76     exit 1
  77 fi
  78
  79 # Separate the arguments.  Assume the first is the viewer, the last is
  80 # the file, and all in between are options to the viewer.
  81
  82 viewer="$1"
  83 shift
  84
  85 while [ "$#" -gt "1" ]
  86 do
  87     options="$options $1"
  88     shift
  89 done
  90
  91 file=$1
  92
  93 # Create a temporary directory for our copy of the temporary file.
  94 #
  95 # This is more secure than creating a temporary file in an existing
  96 # directory.
  97
  98 tmpdir=/tmp/$LOGNAME$$
  99 umask 077
 100 mkdir "$tmpdir" || exit 1
 101 tmpfile="$tmpdir/${file##*/}"
 102
 103 # Copy mutt's temporary file to our temporary directory so that we can
 104 # let mutt overwrite and delete it when we exit.
 105
 106 cp "$file" "$tmpfile"
 107
 108 # Run the viewer in the background and delete the temporary files when done.
 109
 110 (
 111     "$viewer" $options "$tmpfile" >/dev/null 2>&1
 112     rm -f "$tmpfile"
 113     rmdir "$tmpdir"
 114 ) &