Try this. It will run the associated application (if it has one) for any file you selected from the list and load that file.

It avoids having to do any registry lookups for install paths by simply starting cmd.exe passing the name of the file you wish to edit as a parameter.

It relies on CMD's smarts to work out which application to run in the same way as when type just the name of a file on the command line and hit enter.This greatly simplifies the code for your application.

I've tested it on .doc (WORD), .pdf (ACROBAT), .html (Opera on my system), .jpg (ACDSee), .zip (WinZip), .mpg (WinAmp) and they all worked with the code below. It should work for any file for which you have an association.

In fact, with a minor change, it even works for .pl file starting perl and leaving the command shell window open even after the script completes, but I intend writing that up seperately.

I've hacked your code around a lot getting this to work, so if you have any questions about what or why I did it, feek free to ask.

# !perl -sw
use Tk;
use strict;
use Win32::Process;
local $|=0;
my $W = MainWindow->new;
$W->title("Select Job");
$W->iconname('select job');

my $file_selected;

# Read the directory contents - Put in a path were you have files plac
+ed
# use a ARG of . to select from the current directory.
my @dirContents = readDir ($ARGV[0]||"C:\\public");

my $TOP = $W->Toplevel;
$TOP->title("data contents");
$TOP->geometry("+70+120");
$TOP->configure(-background => lc("aquamarine2"));
my $tFrame = $TOP->Frame;
my $bFrame = $TOP->Frame;
$tFrame->configure(-background => lc("PaleTurquoise"));
$bFrame->configure(-background => lc("PaleTurquoise"));

# Create the label for editing the file
my $lab = $tFrame->Label(-text => "Double click to edit file: ",
  -background => "PaleTurquoise",
     -anchor => 'e');

# Create a listbox with the contents of the directory.
my $ent = $tFrame->Scrolled(qw/Listbox -setgrid 1 -height 16 -width 40
+ -scrollbars e -selectmode single/);
for(@{dirContents}) {
    $ent->insert(0, "$_");
}
$ent->bind(
    '<Double-Button-1>',
     sub {
        my $pid;
        $file_selected = $ent->get('active');

        print .$/;

        Win32::Process::Create(
            $pid,
            $ENV{COMSPEC},
            "/c \"$file_selected\"",
            0,
            0,
            "."
        )|| die ErrorReport();
    }
);

# Quit the edit directory contents popup
my $quitButton =
$bFrame->Button(-text => "Quit",
                -width => 12, -background => "PaleTurquoise",
                -activebackground => "PaleTurquoise",
                -command => sub { $TOP->destroy; } # strictly not nece
+ssary
               );

# Instead of pack, using grid to place more precisely.
Tk::grid($tFrame, -row => 0, -column => 0, -sticky => 'w', -padx => 10
+, -pady => 10, );
Tk::grid($bFrame, -row => 1, -column => 0, -sticky => 's', -padx => 10
+, -pady => 10, );
Tk::grid($quitButton, -row => 0, -column => 0, -sticky => 'w', -padx =
+> 10, -pady => 10, );
Tk::grid($lab, -row => 1, -column => 0, -sticky => 'w', -padx => 10, -
+pady => 10, );
Tk::grid($ent, -row => 1, -column => 1, -sticky => 'w', -padx => 10, -
+pady => 10, );

MainLoop;

sub readDir {
    my ($DirName) = @_;
    opendir (INDIR,$DirName) or die "\nCannot open $DirName: $!\n";

    my @DirContents = grep{ !/^\.\.?$/ && -f $_ }
                      map{ "$DirName\\$_" }readdir(INDIR);

    close (INDIR);
    return @DirContents;
}
[download]

This is working great. I didn't know we could get the application links from Windows parsed into Perl. I was going the though way while it could be done so easy. Thanks.

I have found the problem in the meantime. When you have a (Default) value in the registry you cannot use the "()". You just have to say Default and then it works fine. Of course any better suggestion to get easy installation paths of applications (version independent - adobe 4,5 / office 95,97,..) then using the registry is welcome.

Below a simplified sample. Still problems to read the default value

#!/perl/bin -w
###################################################################
#
# Purpose: Declaration of Modules to use in this script
###################################################################
use strict;
use Win32::Process;



 use Win32API::Registry 0.21 qw( :ALL );
 my ( $key, $type, $data );
   RegOpenKeyEx( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, "SOFTWARE\\Adobe\\Acrobat Reader\
+\5.0\\InstallPath", 0, KEY_READ, $key )
     or  die "Can't open SOFTWARE\\Adobe\\Acrobat Reader\\5.0\\Install
+Path: ",  regLastError(),"\n";
   RegQueryValueEx( $key, "(Default)", [], $type, $data, [] )
     or  die "Can't read SOFTWARE\\Adobe\\Acrobat Reader\\5.0\\Install
+Path\\(Default): ", regLastError(),"\n";
   
   RegCloseKey( $key )
   or  die "Can't close HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\Disk: ", regLastEr
+ror(),"\n";
[download]

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Win32::API;

my $ShellExecute = new Win32::API("shell32", "ShellExecute", [qw(N P P
+ P P N)], 'N');
my $hWnd = 0;
my $filename = 'c:/public/test.pdf';

$ShellExecute->Call($hWnd, 'open', $filename, '', '', 1);
[download]

I didn't munge it into your example, but it should be pretty straightforward to do.