Re: 21.x feature request: windows shortcut support

[David Masterson]

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii writes:

>> From: David Masterson <dmaster@synopsys.com>
>> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.bug
>> Date: 12 Oct 2001 15:40:01 -0700

>> > I am not sure that is correct. It may be Microsoft's design that
>> > they are only intended to be double-clicked with a mouse in order to
>> > execute the default application for a shortcut's target, but I see
>> > no reason why we should restrict Emacs to such a narrow use.

>> That doesn't appear to be the only use on Windows.  You can have a
>> shortcut to a text file (for instance).  When clicked on, it will
>> "Open" the text file (ie. invoke the editor [Notepad] on it).

> I think this is because Notepad has specific application-level
> support for shortcuts.

I don't think so (but I'm no expert).  I think Notepad is invoked
because Windows has it attached to its list of File Types as the means
to open files of that type. 

>> Since a shortcut is more than just a soft link, I don't think
>> implementing shortcut support as an Emacs primitive will work
>> (something needs to interpret the "Target type").

> We probably need both; it's a mess.

Is the problem here that we don't want to incorporate MS-Windows code
into Emacs?  If you resolved the shortcut the "Windows" way, by
definition, the right thing should happen.  In the case of opening a
shortcut to text file, Windows would normally use Notepad, but that
can easily be altered to invoke Emacs (or, better yet, gnuclient).

-- 
David Masterson                dmaster AT synopsys DOT com
Sr. R&D Engineer               Synopsys, Inc.
Software Engineering           Sunnyvale, CA