Is there a way to add a ClickOnce application that uses .appref-ms to the system path?

Question

I downloaded a Windows application called MarkdownPad (great app!) and would like to add it to my system path so that I can open it from the command line, e.g.

> markdownpad.exe .\something.md

However, I can't find where this application is installed on disk. When I look up the application in the start menu, all I see is a .appref-ms file. Opening it up in notepad, all I see is a URL, http://markdownpad.com/download/MarkdownPad.application#MarkdownPad.application. I'm not sure exactly how this is used, but it's not really helping me figure out how to run this tool from the command line.

Is there something I can do so that I can execute this application from the command line?

Answer 1

If you associate .md files with MarkdownPad so that you can double-click to open them you can use the start utility to open markdown files.

That's what I do in my git repositories.

start README.md

Admittedly this only works if you name your markdown files with the .md extension.

There's probably an easier way of associating but here's what I did (Windows 7) so that I didn't have to browse to the path of Mp.

1. Start MarkdownPad
2. Drag random .md-file to the MarkdownPad icon in the taskbar (in order to hint to the OS that Mp is an alternative).
3. Right-click on the same MD file, Select Open With -> Choose default program...
4. Select MarkdownPad

The start utility is a godsend if you're in git bash or cmd.exe. Start foo.sln launches visual studio, start foo.jpg launches your default image viewer etc.

Answer 2

Beat me to it :) I didn't realize you were using Powershell, so I whipped up a command file to do it. Figured I might as well post it as another option. The simplest way to make it work would be to save it as markdownpad.cmd and throw it in your system folder.

@echo OFF
set app=C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\MarkdownPad\MarkdownPad.appref-ms

if [%1]==[] (
  "%app%"
  goto exit
) 

if exist "%~dpnx1" (
  "%app%" "%~dpnx1"
  goto exit
)

echo Can't find file, '%1%'

:exit