Exactly what I was thinking:

pavneet@darjiling:~$ more .mailcap
application/pdf; evince %s

I like evince because it also doesn't lock the PDF file, and
auto-refreshes the view when updated.  It also has/can have a space
efficient toolbar structure, which works great on my little netbook:
Asus EEE 701 running Bodhi Linux off an SD card---my favourite writing
environment by far.  So no wrapper needed except for first invocation
which puts evince in the background.

My own work environment is a bit like an old-school IDE:

- tmux with side-by-side panes for vim editing and document compilation.
- different tmux "windows" for different documents being worked on.
- evince on one of the adjacent workspace to preview.
  <CTRL><ALT><RIGHT|LEFT> to quickly switch back and forth from
  edit-compile to test workspaces.