New `MimeType` fields in .desktop

[Bollinger, John C]

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 4:49 AM, Jehan Pagès <jehan.marmottard at gmail.com> wrote:
* GIMP would set XCF (and variants) as its NativeMimeType and PSD, ORA, PSP (and other similar formats for raster editing) as IntentMimeType. Thus saying that "XCF" is what they do best (and a XCF file was likely even created by GIMP or by another software to be exchanged with someone on GIMP), so GIMP is a very suitable default. The intent formats are not GIMP's ones, but if you have no application out there with a suitable NativeMimeType, then GIMP can be considered a fallback.
On the other hand, if you try to open a JPEG or PNG, software with these in a generic MimeType (without NativeMimeType nor IntentMimeType) would get precedence.

[...]

Why I think it's a good proposal:
1. Many software won't have to change their desktop file. If you are not in an usage area with a concept of specialized formats or the like, you are probably already good.
2. The software which should update their desktop file, it's not a huge problem if they don't immediately. It will be neither worse nor better than now. And when they update, it's just 2 fields to add.

As I understand it, the original motivation for the proposal was user complaints that installing the GIMP caused the default application chosen for opening certain image formats other than XCF to change to the GIMP.  It was perceived as the GIMP coopting those formats' file associations.  Is this still among the problems you want to address?  If so, then it would be helpful for you to speak to how the proposal addresses it.  It would also be helpful for you to describe any other objectives you see for the proposal.

Note also that I am not against any other solution, since I read some were not sure my proposal was the best even though a problem is acknowledged. Maybe it's not, though I haven't thought of any better yet and was not convinced by other ideas so far. But I am happy if anyone comes with some better idea which would supersede mine. Until then, I stick with argumenting my original idea. 🙂

Part of my problem at the moment is that it's unclear to me what the appropriate measure of "better" is.  What, specifically, are the problems that are to be solved? What are the minimum characteristics of an acceptable solution? What are other desirable characteristics of a solution?


John


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