Re: [Ranger-users] previewing a certain file type with external utility (tricky case?)

[Thoralf Dassler]

On 14.07.18 08:58, Dimitrios Semitsoglou-Tsiapos wrote:
> On 14/07/18 02:08, Thoralf Dassler wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > trying to configure ranger for the first time. I have a bunch of
> > files, for which ranger tells me:
> >
> > ---File Type Classification---
> > SMTP mail, ASCII text
> >
> > or
> >
> > ---File Type Classification---
> > SMTP mail, ASCII text, with very long lines
> >
> > The file name of these is just an integer number, N (1, 2, 3, 4,
> > ..., 219, ...), without a file extension.
> >
> > On the command line (not running ranger) I use a utility, which
> > takes N as an argument: 'show N'. This displays the content of
> > N in a formatted way ('formatted' means: only display
> > certain parts of the file contents, and filter out other parts).
> >
> > I'd like ranger to use 'show N' as auto-preview for these files.
> > I suspect I'd have to do four things within ranger's config
> > files:
> >
> > 1) have a condition for 'SMTP mail ASCII text' (with or without
> > very long lines)
> > 2) while running ranger: for the condition, pick N to which I
> > navigate
> > 3) pass N as an argument to 'show'
> > 4) make ranger do 'show N'
> >
> > Hope someone can help.
> >
> > Many thanks,
> > Thoralf
>
> Hello,
>
> Conveniently, ranger comes with a tool for doing file previews called
> `scope`, which in turn uses the configuration file at
> `~/.config/ranger/scope.sh`. Use `ranger --copy-config=scope` if you
> don't have that file yet.
>
> In that file you will notice that scope can figure out how to handle a
> file either by looking at its extension or its mimetype. Since your
> files have no extension, you most likely want to use mimetypes. To
> figure out the mimetype of your file, do `mimetype N` on one of your
> files. You will probably get `message/rfc822`, meaning you would add
> something like the following in the mimetype case:
>
> message/rfc822)
>        try my_show_program "$path" && { dump | trim; exit 0; }
>
> Also take a look at `~/.config/ranger/rifle.conf` for opening (as
> opposed to previewing) files.
>
> Good luck,
> Dimitri

Hi,

thanks for the quick response. Going with Dimitri's suggestion, I have 
added this section to my ~/.config/ranger/scope.sh:

# Mail
message/rfc822)
show "${FILE_PATH}" && { dump | trim; exit 0; }

${FILE_PATH} is defined in scope.sh as
FILE_PATH="${1}"         # Full path of the highlighted file

In my case ranger should therefore run:
'show /home/user/mail/inbox/N' (N is an integer number, it
represents the file names in /home/user/mail/inbox)

However, what I actually need is: 'show $N', i.e.: I need to
only pass the file names without the path.

Can '$N' be done in scope.sh? If yes, how would I have to do it?

Explanation: The reason why I need only '$N' is because
1) The utility 'show' insists on its dedicated .mh_profile being present;
2) 'Path:' must be defined within .mh_profile. The value of
'Path:' therefore gets auto-inserted in front of '${FILE_PATH}', which 
does not work of course. Hence I only need '$N'.

Many thanks,
Thoralf