GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 106868
No good way to add to global short-list
Last modified: 2007-01-16 10:17:57 UTC
As far as I can tell, there is no good way to add another handler to the global (default) short-list for an already-known MIME type, e.g. from the installation package for the application. There seem to be two ways to update the list: 1. Edit gnome-vfs.keys, or whatever .keys file orignally configured the list. 2. Add another .keys file with a short-list that completely replaces the original one, and hope that definition is read after the original one. neither of which I consider to be very good. Or to put it differently: It seems like the config structure is based on the assumption that the GnomeVFS maintainers know about all applications (or all the "good" ones, anyway) that can handle a given type, which is in my opinion bad design. Another question is whether we want to have the short-lists at all, based on the now-familiar arguments about over-configurability etc.
I thought a bit about the whole mime database mess over the week end, and I think the short list system should be replaced with some "relevance" system (a la kde): each app sets a relevance value for each mime type it supports (the lower, the more appropriate the app is to handle a given mimetype). So for example, eog would get a relevance of 10 for png images, while mozilla would get 60 (these are mostly random numbers for now :p). The short list would then be the 3 more relevant apps, or the apps whose relevance is <50 or some system like that. That would also solve your problem at the same time :)
Yes. I like the idea. The only possible problem would be that the config files, and the algorithms used to set up the lists, could get too complex. In which case a cruder approach like splitting mime_types in application-registry into "primary" and "secondary" types, or something like that, should be considered. ("Short list" call would return all apps mentioning the type in "primary", while "full" list would also contain the "secondary" handlers.)
No more short list in the new api/db/gui