Creating New Files

Documentation / Contents - File Handlers

• Overview of File Handlers
  • The Pair
  • What a File Type Is
• Opening a File
  • What Happens When You Open Something
  • Opening With a Particular Tool
• The File Handlers Panel
  • The File Type List
  • The Opens With List
  • The Detail Line
  • The Buttons
• Choosing a Handler
  • Auto-Pick Best
  • Try It
  • Opening Nothing
• Icons
  • The Available Icons List
  • Set Icon
• Creating New Files
• The Canonical Panel
• Where the Settings Live
  • The Master List
  • The Rule Files
  • The Ranking Tables
• From the Command Line
• Copyright Information

Creating New Files

The same machinery that decides what OPENS a kind of file also decides what CREATES one. That is what fills the File Manager's "New File Here" menu.

The rule is that the menu lists only kinds this machine can actually make. A menu entry for a kind of document with no program installed to write it is a menu entry that fails when you pick it, so it is not offered.

How a File Gets Made

There are three ways, and each kind of document uses whichever suits it.

touch and open       create it empty, then run the editor
seed and open        write a starter, then run the editor
the tool makes it    a program writes the file

The seeded kinds are the ones where an empty file is not valid or not useful: an HTML page gets a skeleton, an SVG gets a root element, a shell script gets its first line and the executable bit.

From the Command Line

cyopen --list-create    the live create recipes
cyopen --create PATH    create PATH if missing, then open

--create picks the recipe from the path's suffix. Naming a file "rivendell-notes.txt" gets you a text file opened in your text handler; naming it "rivendell-map.svg" gets you a seeded drawing.

--list-create is what the File Manager runs to build its menu, and it is the tool to run when you are wondering why a kind is missing: if it is not in that list, the machine has nothing installed that can make it.

Adding a Kind

The recipes are a data table like the open ranking, not code. See Where the Settings Live.

See Opening a File for the other half.