Re: 2.6 digressions [was Re: release notes pimping [and some random thoughts on 2.6]]

[Jonathan Blandford <jrb redhat com>]

Luis Villa <louie ximian com> writes:

> >  - preferred applications spec that works cross-desktop
> >    (easier if we have cross-desktop IPC system like dbus)
> 
> Possibly a dumb question, but if mime stuff works correctly, why do we
> need the concept of 'preferred applications' at all?

I'm not 100% sure what a 'preferred applications' spec is, but I can try
to guess what Havoc meant here.  Basically, there's a difference between
the protocol you use to get to a file, and the way you handle the file.
It's kinda messy, really.  Do you want to open the URI:
http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/images/pirate.jpg with eog or epiphany?  Both
will handle that, but the file itself is an image/jpeg.  We may be able
to come up with a good solution for this case, but things like picking
the mailer (for mailto:), terminal etc. are also problematic.

I don't I'm particularly comfortable with the mime stuff as it is
providing this.  It basically provides a way to map from a particular
file to a mime-type, and from a mime-type to an app.  It doesn't provide
a good way to map to a task.

Thanks,
-Jonathan