NAME

       vis-open — Interactively select a file to open

SYNOPSIS

       vis-open [-p prompt] [-f] [--] [files]

       vis-open -h | --help

DESCRIPTION

       vis-open  takes  a  list of filenames and directories on the command-line and displays them in a menu for
       the user to select one.  If the user selects a directory  (including  ..),  the  directory  contents  are
       displayed  as  a  fresh  menu.   Once  the  user has selected a filename, its absolute path is printed to
       standard output.

       vis-open uses vis-menu(1) as its user-interface, so see that page for more details.

       -p prompt
             Display prompt before the list of items.  This is passed straight through to vis-menu(1).

       -f    Normally, if  vis-open  is  provided  with  a  single  filename  or  directory  argument,  it  will
             automatically  select  it  (printing the filename to standard output, or presenting a new menu with
             the contents of the directory).  If -f is provided, vis-open will always present the arguments it's
             given, even if there's only one.

       --    If this token is encountered before the first non-option argument, all following arguments will  be
             treated as menu-items, even if they would otherwise be valid command-line options.

             If  encountered  after  the  first  non-option  argument,  or after a previous instance of -- it is
             treated as a menu-item.

       files
             File and directory names to be presented to the user.  If a name does not exist on  the  filesystem
             and the user selects it, it is treated as a file.

       -h | --help
             If present, vis-open prints a usage summary and exits, ignoring any other flag and arguments.

EXIT STATUS

       The vis-open utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

       In  particular,  like  vis-menu(1),  vis-open  prints  nothing  and sets its exit status to 1 if the user
       refused to select a file.

EXAMPLES

             CHOICE=$(vis-open -p "Select a file to stat")
             if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
                     echo "No selection was made, or an error occurred"
             else
                     stat "$CHOICE"
             fi

SEE ALSO

       vis(1), vis-menu(1)

BUGS

       Because vis-open uses ls(1) to obtain the contents of a directory, weird things might happen if you  have
       control-characters in your filenames.

Vis 0.8                                         November 29, 2016                                    VIS-OPEN(1)