GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 102017
associate program to a file extension
Last modified: 2005-07-20 18:33:39 UTC
it would be nice if nautilus let you choose the application to run by extension. i have these .ogm file that are ogg streams and can contain video, audio and so on, and i want to open them with mplayer. On the other side i have .ogg files that contain vorbis (sound) and i want to open them with xmms, but nautilus assigns a application/x-ogg for both ogg and ogm. A Windows like beahvior is would also be nice ("open with..." and you type/choose the application you want)
The Nautilus help manual ("Assigning Actions to Files") details the steps necessary to change file type associations. I'm closing, since the steps detailed there work for me. If you've tried them and they don't work, could you reopen this with a description of what you did and where it failed? Thanks.
Those steps work in general, but don't work with this situation. For Nautilus .ogm and .ogg are the same type (and technically this is correct), so they are handled with the same program. Seems that nautilus is inspecting the content of files rather than extensions (and this is fine, but not in all the situations)
Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation. I'm pretty sure this is not possible based on gnome-vfs, which makes its decision based on mime type. We'd have to add a whole additional layer that checks and makes decisions based on file extensions before looking at mime types. But I'll leave that to the experts. Even if it is possible, I'd argue against it on UI grounds. We'd have to add a layer of UI to enable this to be set, which would be an added layer of complexity for all users that would only benefit a rarely used corner case.
Thanks for your response. I can't speak for the technical side, but for the UI side, I can think two different methods: - Add a preference to Nautilus (as "Always determine the file type by extension"). or - A checkbox in the MIME type dialog of each MIME-type ("Determine THIS MIME-type only by extension).
*** Bug 128886 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 128888 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Hi, Users expect, that the action (which application is to be run) is determined by file extension. The mime-type idea is a terrible thing for a normal user. They simply don't understand it. It should be configurable (per user or per system) if mime type or file extension is to be used. The ideal would be if: 1. switch to recognizing file type by it's extension. 2. as in 1 but if one extension is used for different mime types, then in such case nautilus should detect mime type from file content. This should be controlled by user - eg. if user wants to associate an extension with another application, he would get dialog box with question if previous association is to be dropped or if the mime type for this extension should be detected by file content. This should also improve performance of directory listing a lot!
The extension rant can be ignored, since we currently use a system which works pretty well, i.e. we have a first run and just check the extension and when selecting a file we sniff contents. Associating a program with an extension is simply not the user's job. Developers should ship applications that work nicely together with the shared-mime-info [1] and the desktop-entry-spec [2]. The Ogg MIME detection is still hosed, cf. bug 302757. [1] http://standards.freedesktop.org/shared-mime-info-spec/shared-mime-info-spec-latest.html [2] http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 302757 ***