#783344 Please add qeeqie as an alternative for the 'display' command

Package:
geeqie
Source:
geeqie
Description:
image viewer using GTK+
Submitter:
Tomas Pospisek
Date:
2015-04-27 08:39:14 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
#783344#5
Date:
2015-04-26 07:55:38 UTC
From:
To:
Hello,

when command line programs want to show a picture, they will
mostly/often use /usr/bin/display, which is a link to
/etc/alternatives/display. On my system that points to ImageMagic's
/usr/bin/display-im6, which from a UI perspective is a *horrible* program
in the tradition of ancient X applications with arbitrary key
bindings and UI conventions, which need to be learned first.

I do not think display-im6 should be inflicted on the general user
population (users that do want to use it should be free to do
so however).

My preferred display program is qeeqie. So I wish for geeqie to provide
a 'display' alternative.

I achieved this by doing:

  $ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/display display /usr/bin/geeqie 100
  $ sudo update-alternatives --set display /usr/bin/geeqie

Since there seems to be no way to achieve that in a declarative dh_ way,
something like the above would need to go into postinst/postrm.

Thanks a lot for packaging qeeqie!
*t
#783344#12
Date:
2015-04-26 18:05:51 UTC
From:
To:
Hi

Dne Sun, 26 Apr 2015 09:55:38 +0200
Tomas Pospisek <tpo_deb@sourcepole.ch> napsal(a):

This is really not how alternatives should be used - they are to
provide ways to choose between different versions of program, not
between different programs:

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-pkg-alternatives.html

You are probably looking for /usr/bin/see or you can use xdg-open,
which both can be configured both system wide and per user to do what
wanted.
#783344#19
Date:
2015-04-27 07:51:10 UTC
From:
To:
Hi

[Resending to keep bugs.debian.org in the loop]

Dne Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:52:27 +0200 (CEST)
Tomas Pospisek <tpo_deb@sourcepole.ch> napsal(a):
few generic alternatives within Debian (like editor, view, www-browser
or pager), however display is not one of them. It is a program with
defined command line interface provided by ImageMagick (or rather
graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat these days). So I don't think it's
good idea to mix it with alternatives and completely different tool.

Anyway if you want to do this, you first need to persuade
graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat maintainers to make /usr/bin/display
use alternatives and then report bugs against different viewers to
support this interface.

PS: I still think that xdg-open or see are better tools for this
purpose...