Opening the OS-supplied File Manager (other than Nautilus) fail

[tudogeorge]

Commands that require launching the OS File Manager fail with the following exception:
java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "nautilus": error=2, No such file or directory.

I tried

• File > Reveal on Desktop
• File > Include > Reveal in Explorer

Expected Behavior

The OS-supplied File Manager application should open at that file's location and with that file selected.

Current Behavior

The following exception is thrown: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "nautilus": error=2, No such file or directory.
The error message popping up at "Reveal in Explorer" is misleading (it says "File cannot be found" instead of "Could not reveal / ".

Steps to Reproduce

• On a Linux distribution with a file manager other than Nautilus, open the Scene Builder application
• Create and save an FXML file (CHILD_FILE.FXML) - do not close Scene Builder
• Reproduce the issue on "Reveal on Desktop" by accessing File > Reveal on Desktop
• Create and save another FXML file (PARENT_FILE.FXML) - this instance can be closed
• Include CHILD_FILE.FXML into PARENT_FILE.FXML
• In the left-hand side of the editor, in the Document > Hierarchy section, select the included file
• Reproduce the issue on "Reveal in Explorer" by accessing File > Include > Edit 'CHILD_FILE.FXML' in Explorer

Environment

OS: Kubuntu 22.04; file manager: Dolphin 21.12.3

Scene Builder Product Version
JavaFX Scene Builder 21.0.0

Build Information
Version 21.0.0
Date: 2023-10-05 12:11:04
JavaFX Version: 21
Java Version: 21, OpenJDK Runtime Environment

[Oliver-Loeffler]

Besides making the file browser configurable, we could try following approach for Linux:

• check if nautilus exists (e.g. using which nautilus) and then prefer the first occurance of it
• check if dolphin exists (on Kubuntu) and then prefer the first occurance of it

If neither nautilus or dolphin are found, we could try to find xdg-open. If that exists, we could run xdg-open /directory.

That would at least solve this particular issue on Kubuntu.

[Oliver-Loeffler]

Experiment

I've just collected how the error messages look like for the case an exception is raised.

• 1: File / Reveal in Explorer - (DocumentWindowController.performRevealAction())
  

• 2: File / Include / Reveal <xyz.fxml> in Explorer - (EditorController.performRevealIncludedFile())

If a file was properly included, it cannot be missing at all.

There is a 3rd occasion for this pattern in ResourceController.performRevealResource(). Same thing here (it uses EditorPlatform.revealInFileBrowser()).

Conclusion:

Bad things:

• Both dialogs lack the application icon.
• Despite the same error caused the problem, both dialogs show a different explanation whereas the message in case 2 is mislieading.
• Besides dialogs, the exit code of the process launched is not evaluated. An exit code !=0 can be assumed as an indication of an error without a related exception. Hence its useful to catch the exit code and to evaluate it accordingly.

Good things:

• The errors are catched and handled.
• The stacktrace is provided to the details view.

Aproach:

• The user must be able to figure out, what went wrong. Hence the relevant details must be passed into the log.
• The system call might fail for various reasons. One is, the actual program to be launched is missing. Another one is that the program is launched the wrong way. Or the directory to be revealed is missing.