Ubuntu – Opening a file from terminal

xdg-open is, of course, designed to use the default applications. To use non-default applicaitons, I think you have three options.

1) Type programname filename as usual.

2) Do this outside of the terminal by a right-click in Nautilus and using open with.

3) Use your own script in the terminal. Let's assume you have a reasonably short list of default programs you might want to choose from.

#!/bin/bash
read filename
myvar=$(zenity --list --text="Chose a non-default program" --column="Programs" firefox gedit)
$myvar filename &

This would let you specify a file name, then choose the program to open it with. This is the minimal implementation, so it might need some additional work. But try it out.

There may not be a lot of benefits to this approach, but it gives you control over the process and options to suit whatever needs you have.

If you're opening just one file, you don't really need to use a script, because a script is meant to be an easy way to run multiple commands in a row, while here you just need to run two commands (including exit).

If you want to run exit after a command or after a chain of commands, you can chain it to what you have already by using the && operator (which on success of the previous command / chain of commands will execute the next command) or by using the ; operator (which both on success and on failure of the previous command / chain of commands will execute the next command).

In this case it would be something like that:

gnome-open <path_to_pdf_file> && exit

_{*<path_to_pfd_file> = path of the pdf file}

exit put at the end of a script doesn't work because it just exits the bash instance in which the script is run, which is another bash instance than the Terminal's inner bash instance.

If you want to use a script anyway, the most straightforward way it's to just call the script like so:

<path_to_script> && exit

Or if the script is in the Terminal's current working directory like so:

./<script> && exit

If you really don't want to / can't do that, the second most straightforward way is to add this line at the end of your script:

kill -9 $PPID

This will send a SIGKILL signal to the to the script's parent process (the bash instance linked to the Terminal). If only one bash instance is linked to the Terminal, that being killed will cause Terminal to close itself. If multiple bash instances are linked to the Terminal, that being killed won't cause Terminal to close itself.