GIO tutorial: Launching files

In this short tutorial we’ll look at several ways we can use GIO to launch (or “open”) files.

Note: This article is part of my ongoing GIO tutorial series, which currently consists of: (1) File and path operations; (2) File IO; and (3) Launching files (this document).

GIO tutorial: Stream IO

This article is a short tutorial showing GIO’s file reading and writing functionality.

Note: This article is part of my ongoing GIO tutorial series, which currently consists of: (1) File and path operations; (2) File IO (this document); and (3) Launching files.

GIO tutorial: File operations

Recently I ported Exaile’s Files panel to use GIO instead of Python’s os module. The reason is simple: remote browsing.

Yes, you can now browse an SMB share or an SFTP server through the Files panel. Just mount the remote filesystem with gvfs-mount and enter the URL into the location bar. Previously Aren ported Exaile’s core to GIO as well, so remote files can be played just fine.

This is the kind of convenience you get out of using GIO/GVFS. In this article I’ll briefly explain what GIO is and how to do some basic file operations—similar to what the Files panel does—using GIO.

Screenshot of Exaile browsing and playing a file through GIO/GVFS

Note: This article is part of my ongoing GIO tutorial series, which currently consists of: (1) File and path operations (this document); (2) File IO; and (3) Launching files.