Support separate file "actions" via MIME-type

[Benedikt Meurer]

Alex Jones wrote:
> Hi

Hey Alex,

> Originally posted on FDO Bugzilla
> (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7184), but Owen Taylor
> suggested I posted to this list to get some exposure.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't fully understand the spec, yet.
> 
> Currently, file actions are linked to .desktop files on a one-to-one basis. For
> example, AbiWord has a file, "abiword.desktop", which describes its Launcher
> behaviour, including name, generic name, comment, categories (for application
> organisation) and the command used to start the application.
> 
> If, for example, you wanted several actions for a particular file, you would
> have to create separate .desktop files. You might want three actions for audio
> files in Rhythmbox - "Play now in Rhythmbox", "Add to Rhythmbox library", "Queue
> in Rhythmbox". I see no way you can do this without creating separate .desktop
> files.

There's already a mechanism for "Desktop Actions" defined in the spec
and it's currently supported by Thunar and Konqueror. See the "How dows
[Desktop Action...] work?" thread for details:

 http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2006-February/007718.html

See the xfmedia.desktop.in file at

 http://svn.xfce.org/svn/xfce/xfmedia/trunk/xfmedia.desktop.in

for an example of how to add additional actions for media players, which
will be displayed like this

 http://thunar.xfce.org/images/thunar-desktop-actions.png

in the file managers that support desktop actions.

Maybe the desktop-entry spec should be updated to better describe the
desktop actions?

HTH,
Benedikt