xdg-open-wsl

xdg-open-wsl is an xdg-open replacement for WSL that opens files and links using Windows apps.

For WSL apps using X, e.g. emacs, this enables the opening of files using the relevant Windows tool.

Installation.

Until I publish to pypi, the easiest is option 1.

Option 1: Install from github using pip.

# make sure you have the latest pip
# NOTE: you HAVE to do this upgrade, else pip install won't know what to do without setup.py!
pip3 install --user --upgrade pip
# install xdg-open-wsl using your latest pip
pip install --user git+https://github.com/cpbotha/xdg-open-wsl.git
# ensure that the newly installed xdg-open is active
# the following command should show something like /home/username/.local/bin/xdg-open
which xdg-open

Option 2: Use the main script directly.

Download only the xdg_open_wsl.py script and save it as xdg-open into your ~/.local/bin/ or ~/bin/, whichever is in your PATH before any system xdg-open.

Ensure with which xdg-open that your new xdg-open is preferred.

FAQ.

Does this work for Emacs on WSL?

Why yes, of course it does. This is also why I wrote this in the first place.

Importantly, there is a "bug" somewhere between Emacs and the WSL which will cause org-open-file to block forever.

Follow the advice in my blog post Patch Emacs org-open-file using advice to fix this behaviour.

In short, simply add this to your init.el:

;; fix org-open-file for wsl by temporarily replacing start-process-shell-command with call-process-shell-command
;; if we don't do this, emacs on WSL will block forever trying to open exported file with windows handler
(defun wsl-fix-org-open-file (orig-org-open-file &rest args)
  ;; temporarily replace function,
  ;; see https://endlessparentheses.com/understanding-letf-and-how-it-replaces-flet.html
  (cl-letf (((symbol-function 'start-process-shell-command) #'call-process-shell-command))
    (apply orig-org-open-file args)))

(advice-add #'org-open-file :around #'wsl-fix-org-open-file)