Question

zsh has a feature (auto_cd) where just typing the directory name will automatically go to (cd) that directory. I’m curious if there would be a way to configure zsh to do something similar with file names, automatically open files with vim if I type only a file name?

Answer 1

There are three possibilities I can think of. First is suffix aliases which may automatically translate

% *.ps

to

% screen -d -m okular *.ps

after you do

alias -s ps='screen -d -m okular'

. But you need to define this alias for every file suffix. It is also processed before most expansions so if

% *.p?

matches same files as *.ps it won’t open anything.

Second is command_not_found handler:

function command_not_found_handler()
{
    emulate -L zsh
    for file in $@ ; do test -e $file && xdg-open $file:A ; done
}

. But this does not work for absolute or relative paths, only for something that does not contain forward slashes.

Third is a hack overriding accept-line widget:

function xdg-open()
{
    emulate -L zsh
    for arg in $@ ; do
        command xdg-open $arg
    endfor
}
function _-accept-line()
{
    emulate -L zsh
    FILE="${(z)BUFFER[1]}"
    whence $FILE &>/dev/null || BUFFER="xdg-open $BUFFER"
    zle .accept-line
}
zle -N accept-line _-accept-line

. The above alters the history (I can show how to avoid this) and is rather hackish. Good it does not disable suffix aliases (whence '*.ps' returns the value of the alias), I used to think it does. It does disable autocd though. I can avoid this (just || test -d $FILE after whence test), but who knows how many other things are getting corrupt as well. If you are fine with the first and second solutions better to use them.