<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> The association of applications to file types and URLs are handled in different ways by different desktop environments (DEs) currently. It is understandable as to how this system evolved, because you want <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="file://">file://</a> to be associated with Dolphin in KDE, and with Nautilus in Gnome. However, this leaves programs broken which try to register with specific DEs which the user doesn't use. Developers are not able to work with every DE's proprietary registration system because doing so is impossible. This helps create a detrimental environment for the open source ecosystem. There should be standards for setting default applications for file and URL handlers if none currently exist, and they need to address the issue of DE-specific needs as well as default settings for all DEs. Does anyone know if such standards exist yet? If not, we need to create them. Here is an example of the logic that could be used. The first two columns specify what application is the default/primary application to run when the user calls a certain file or URL type, and the 3rd column gives the corresponding action that should be used to decide which one to run. <table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffcccc">DE-Wide</td> <td bgcolor="#ffcccc" valign="top">DE-Specific </td> <td bgcolor="#ffcccc" valign="top">Resulting Selection while running Specific DE </td> <td bgcolor="#ffcccc" valign="top">Action upon installing </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">none specified </td> <td valign="top">none specified</td> <td valign="top">prompt user for program or do nothing </td> <td valign="top">Change both DE-Wide and DE-Specific </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">nautilus </td> <td valign="top">none specified</td> <td valign="top">run nautilus </td> <td valign="top">Change only DE-Specific </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">none specified</td> <td valign="top">nautilus </td> <td valign="top">run nautilus </td> <td valign="top">Could prompt user, change DE-Wide </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">nautilus </td> <td valign="top">dolphin </td> <td valign="top">run dolphin </td> <td valign="top">Could prompt user </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The "Action upon installing" column refers to when a program is being installed or run for the first time and attempts update the association. If a program finds an existing setting, it could either ask the user if they want to change it or make the change anyway or do nothing. In turn, that choice could, ideally, depend on a DE or global setting as well so that users could avoid all prompts like that in order to further create a uniform desktop experience. Regardless, the installer/program would always at least add itself to a list of applications which can be used to handle that file type or URL, so there would be a default app setting and a path to that app as well as a list of all apps capable of handling the request. Examples: When installing applications such as torrent clients, they should register <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="magnet://">"magnet://"</a> to call them, no matter the DE. When installing web browsers, "url://" should be associated to them, no matter the DE. When installing a chat client, programs should register themselves for each "aim://", "yahoo://", "xmpp://" etc URL type, and possibly prompt user for changing the defaults for those if one already exists. Implementation: What would be the best way to implement this standard? What existing standards are being used for these types of things, if any? I know that Gnome has gconf and has what amounts to basically a registry for Gnome, but the problem is that it is just for Gnome and so not a true standard that all DEs and programs can use. Perhaps if Gnome's registry is done well, a similar system could be placed in ~/.config, which seems to be the standard for all user configuration data which many apps are currently choosing to use. Thoughts, ideas, and suggestions please! </body> </html>