GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 422134
unintuitive location of "open with" default settings (in properties, rather than with the other "open with" stuff)
Last modified: 2010-12-18 19:32:39 UTC
the nautilus "Open with other application..." menu should list "recommended applications" first in the list of applications to associate with file open. xfce's thunar does this quite well. please review thunar's behavior and update nautilus to do the same. the current behavior, which involves showing all possible applications, is information-overload to the average user. this is debian bug #408894 (http://bugs.debian.org/408894). thank you for your consideration. mike Other information:
As we already explained in the Debian bug report, the list of applications capable to open the current file type is the one of those that are already shown without the "open with" dialog. In short, this report doesn’t make any sense, it can be closed.
i still think that there is a problem here. when i want to change a default file association, i need to go into the "Open with other application" dialog. once there, the default tab has a whole bunch of unrelated applications. for example, if i want to reassociate mp3s to a different player, i would want to see the installed media players as the "recommended applications" in the default tab in the "open with" dialog. i'm suggesting this enhancement to make the user's life easier/better. thank you for your consideration.
(In reply to comment #2) > when i want to change a default file association, i need to go into the "Open > with other application" dialog. If anything needs to be fixed, it is whatever lead you to this conclusion. If you want to change a default file association, you need to go in the “Properties” dialog. The “Open with other application” dialog is here to associate the file with a new application, with which it is not associated yet. Associating it here will not make it the default, either; it will just add a new possible one.
ok, i'll give you that. i rarely use nautilus, and i guess i'm used to the way that its done in thunar and windows explorer. i didn't expect the "open with" default setting to be under properties. i guess this is a bigger question: why is does nautilus consider the "open with" a property of the file? isn't it a property of the file extension, not the specific file? i think it makes more sense to keep the "open with's" together. why have a separate "open with" in the properties dialog as well as on the right-click menu? users (especially me) don't expect it to be there, and it honestly doesn't make a lot of sense.
(In reply to comment #4) > ok, i'll give you that. i rarely use nautilus, and i guess i'm used to the way > that its done in thunar and windows explorer. i didn't expect the "open with" > default setting to be under properties. You may want to change summary to reflect that.
This has been recently reworked in nautilus 2.91.4, and I believe your use case is covered too. Closing as such. Please file a new separate bug if you still have issues with the new design, thanks.