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Bug 337289 - Can't delete file associations
Can't delete file associations
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: File and Folder Operations
2.12.x
Other All
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
: 351052 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2006-04-05 00:36 UTC by Daniel Kasak
Modified: 2008-02-10 21:19 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.11/2.12



Description Daniel Kasak 2006-04-05 00:36:52 UTC
Applications register themselves with nautilus as being capable of opening
certain file types. There is no way to delete this association. I *can* delete
associations that I enter myself. The problem is that some applications don't
clean up after themselves when they're removed, leading to duplicate entries in
the 'open with' menu when right-clicking on a file.

For example, I'm starting to amass quite a number of associations for The Gimp.
I'd like to delete all but one, so my 'open with' list look sane.

Other information:
Perhaps instead of completely blocking users from deleting application-set
associations, we could allow users to delete them, but provide a confirmation
dialog or something?

I *used* to be able to delete all associations.
Comment 1 Christian Neumair 2006-04-05 14:47:20 UTC
Right click a file where you want to remove an application, click "Properties".

"File Properties" => "Open With" tab => "Remove" button.
Comment 2 Daniel Kasak 2006-04-05 22:15:33 UTC
Yes that's exactly where I went.
The button's greyed out.
It's only active for associations that *I've* added.
Associations that *applications* have added themselves are 'locked in' via the 'remove' button being greyed out.
Comment 3 Christian Neumair 2006-04-05 22:18:43 UTC
Why do you want to remove existing applications from this list? Are the associations erroneous?
Comment 4 Christian Neumair 2006-04-05 22:19:46 UTC
To be more precise:

> The problem is that some applications don't clean up after themselves when they're removed

How did you install these applications? Are their global .desktop files still around?
Comment 5 Daniel Kasak 2006-04-05 22:31:28 UTC
As noted in the original bug report, I'm trying to remove duplicate entries. Every time I upgrade particular applications, they add another entry for themselves. When I right-click on an image file and say 'open with', I don't want it to say:

Open with "The GIMP"
Open with "The GIMP"
Open with "The GIMP"
Open with "The GIMP"
Open with "The GIMP"
Open with "photoprint"
Open with "hugin"

I installed the gimp from sources. I did a 'make uninstall' before installing the new version.

Whether this is *caused* by an application or not doesn't change the nature of this feature request - ie it doesn't matter how the entry got there. I want to remove it, and the 'remove' button is greyed out.

As for a .desktop file - I have no idea what that is. This morning I decided enough was enough and deleted my .gnome* .gconf* and .nautilus* folders. Perhaps there were .desktop files in there - it's too late to tell now. Deleting all these folders has fixed things.
Comment 6 Christian Neumair 2006-04-05 22:52:03 UTC
Hrm if deleting these dotfiles helped something odd happened. You should rather have been able to fix it by deleting ~/.local/share/applications. Maybe you could check back whether that directory contains some suspicious entries?

> Whether this is *caused* by an application or not doesn't change the nature of
this feature request - ie it doesn't matter how the entry got there.

Being able to remove MIME associations (i.e. files that are found in XDG_DATA_DIRS rather than XDG_DATA_HOME) IMHO isn't very useful usually. I've never run into your problems, I usually have an /opt directory which I add manually to XDG_DATA_DIRS, so that the /opt entries simply override those from /usr.
Comment 7 Daniel Kasak 2006-04-05 23:01:12 UTC
I just checked on my work PC. I was able to reproduce the the multiple entries by uninstalling and re-installing The Gimp again. There is nothing in ~/.local/share/applications about The Gimp. See the screenshot at:

http://www.nusconsulting.com.au/internal/multiple_gimp_entries.jpg
Comment 8 Daniel Kasak 2006-09-19 23:30:29 UTC
This is still causing me considerable grief. When updating applications ( in particular The Gimp ), I'm still getting duplicate associations. Another screenshot is at: http://www.nusconsulting.com.au/internal/bad_association_list.png

The worst bit is that the 1st entry for The Gimp is broken - using it doesn't fire up The Gimp. The 2nd entry is OK. I can switch between entries, sure, but really I should be able to delete the 1st entry ... or even better ... it shouldn't be there to start with. And since Gnome is catering to GUI-only users ( or at least it should be ) at the very least there should be a simple way to 'fix' this via a GUI interface - for example the 'Remove' button in the above screenshot should be enabled.

My .local/share/applications folder doesn't have anything about The Gimp in it:

dan@dkasak ~/.local/share/applications $ ls -la
total 77
drwx------ 2 dan users  616 Sep 13 13:58 .
drwx------ 3 dan users   80 Nov  9  2004 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  188 Apr 11 15:02 defaults.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  131 Apr 22  2005 entice-usercreated.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 6128 Feb 21  2006 file-roller-usercustom.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  124 Mar 15  2005 firefox.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 5860 Apr 29  2005 gedit-usercustom-1.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 6245 Aug 21 15:15 gedit-usercustom-2.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 5860 Apr 29  2005 gedit-usercustom.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 2718 May 27  2005 glade-2-usercustom.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  489 Sep 13 13:58 mimeinfo.cache
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  175 Nov 12  2004 swriter2.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 4151 Nov  3  2005 textdoc2-usercustom.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  131 Sep 13 13:58 tnef-usercreated.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  124 Nov 15  2004 xine.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 dan users  158 Nov 12  2004 xoowriter1.desktop
dan@dkasak ~/.local/share/applications $ grep imp *
dan@dkasak ~/.local/share/applications $
Comment 9 Cosimo Cecchi 2008-02-01 01:33:19 UTC
Closing as OBSOLETE, as I can't reproduce this with 2.21.90 and the whole handling of file association has been rewritten using GAppInfo.
Please open a new bug under the GIO section or reopen this one if you can still reproduce this bug in recent (>=2.21) versions of Nautilus.
Comment 10 Cosimo Cecchi 2008-02-10 21:19:36 UTC
*** Bug 351052 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***