Mimetype Activation (Was: Shared mimetypes + activation)

[Magnus Bergman]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:06:37 +0200
Waldo Bastian <bastian at kde.org> wrote:

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> Hi,
> 
> Mimetype activation / mimtype actions is a somewhat complex set of
> issues. I will try to give an overview of the requirements in this
> area based on http://www.gnome.org/~jrb/files/mime/ and current KDE
> usage.
> 
> R1) Applications can be associated with a mimetype to indicate that
> files of that mimetype can be opened with that application (Open)
> R1-1) Users should be able to associate an application with an
> additional mimetype
> R1-2) Users should be able to remove an association between an
> application and a mimetype
> 
> R2) At most one application can be associated with a mimetype as the
> preferred application to use for opening files of that mimetype
> (Primary Application) R2-1) Users should be able to select the Primary
> Application out of all applications able to open a given mimetype.
> R2-2) Users should be able to order on preference all applications
> able to open a given mimetype. (currently available KDE functionality)
> R2-3) A mechanism must be in place to determine the Primary
> Application if the user has not explicitly selected such Primary
> Application for a given mimetype.
> 
> R3) Actions other than Open can be associated with a mimetype to
> indicate that such action can be performed on files of that mimetype.
> (Actions) R3-1) Actions should have an associated icon, a translatable
> caption and possibly a description and, most important, a description
> of how to activate the action (such as an Exec= line for example)

Have further details about this been discussed? I have always disliked
the default action "open" since it is vague and ambiguous. Sure, it is
well established and (i guess) easy to translate. But it would be better
if applications could provide more specific information about what they
can do with a file, like "view", "play" or "edit". The main (but not
only) reason for having multiple applications associated with a file is
to do different things with the file. Having "view" and "edit" to choose
from makes more sense than "open with eye of gnome" and "open with the
gimp" (and if one of them is just called "open" it doesn't make things
better). If one of the additional actions is selected as the primary
action (could be displayed bold in the menu), then the default action
"open" doesn't need to be there at all.

(Note that I do not suggest the removel of the "open" command over a
night and break most current applications. Rather discourage the usage
of it then an aternative becomes available.)

> R4-1) The Open action may be associated with a desktop/browser
> specific loadable component (KPart, Nautilus component) instead of an
> application. R4-2) Actions may be associated with a desktop/browser
> specific loadable component (KPart, Nautilus component) instead of an
> application.
> 
> Does this look somewhat complete? For some of these (The R4s for
> example) we may choose not to include them in a standard but they
> should probably still be kept in mind while creating the standard.
> 
> Cheers,
> Waldo