fpx

Run Flatpak applications using shorter names, because why type flatpak run com.obsproject.Studio, when you can instead type fpx obs?

All in a single Python script, no external dependencies.

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Flatpak

Install

Simply download, or clone and move (or symlink) the fpx script to somewhere on your PATH, such as ~/.local/bin. It's a single Python script, no external dependencies.

Usage

To see a list of the Flatpak aliases, simply run fpx --list

# Sample output -- yours will depend on what Flatpaks you have installed.
audacity -> org.audacityteam.Audacity
firefox -> org.mozilla.firefox
kdiff3 -> org.kde.kdiff3
obs -> com.obsproject.Studio
obsidian -> md.obsidian.Obsidian

fpx primary selects aliases based on the application manifest's "command" attribute (i.e. the name of the actual binary that runs inside the Flatpak sandbox). This should, theoretically, result in more "natural" aliases, ideally matching what you'd get if you installed the latest package.

Other fallback techniques and a set of manual overrides are also used, in cases where the automatic alias detection yields unhelpful results.

You can test an alias with fpx --print <alias> or fpx --test <alias>, which will print the matching Flatpak ID or the full flatpak run command respectively.

$ fpx --print vlc
org.videolan.VLC (system)
$ fpx --test vlc
/usr/bin/flatpak --system run org.videolan.VLC --

To run a Flatpak, simply pass it as the first argument. Command-line arguments will be forwarded to the Flatpak where possible.

$ fpx vlc

You can also use the -d/--detach flag to run the Flatpak in the background without blocking the current shell:

$ fpx -d vlc

[!NOTE] Currently, argument parsing is done in a very crude way. It works okay for passing in a --help flag or a filename, but you might find some edge cases where passed args might be absorbed by fpx or the flatpak CLI itself.

Contributions to improve this are welcome.

License and Additional Notes

fpx is open source software, and is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0. See LICENSE.txt.

fpx is a Brainmade project. None of the source code was written with generative AI.