Re: [Evolution] Displaying .docx attachments?

[George Reeke <reeke mail rockefeller edu>]

On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 12:21 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 16:56 +0100, Svante R Signell wrote:
> > On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 15:09 +0100, Matthew Barnes wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 14:35 +0100, Svante R Signell wrote:
> > > > Thank you for the information. I know it works by saving the attachment
> > > > to disk and opening it in Openoffice. My question was how to configure
> > > > evolution to get this alternative by right-clicking on the attachment.
> > > > Now the only option is to save to disk. Sorry for being unclear.
> > >
> > > Follow that for the first attachment and subsequent attachments of that
> > > type will offer to open in the application you've chosen.
> >
> > Thanks. So you have to use Nautilus to get the expected behaviour in
> > Evolution. Maybe this should be mentioned in the Evolution Users Guide.
> > I did not find it there or with a quick Googling either.
>
> Actually I think the idea is that you *can* use Nautilus, which is
> probably the easiest way for Gnome users. All Nautilus is doing is
> modifying a setting somewhere. Perhaps someone knowledgeable can tell us
> where.
>
> poc
I too have had this problem, so I will add what I have learned and
maybe somebody else can clarify further.  I too do not run Nautilus
unless I have to turn it on just for this purpose.  (I will omit
the obvious polemic on this topic).

The information on mime types and applications that can process them
is kept in .desktop files.  These are found in many places, for
example, on my system, here is a partial list:

/usr/share/gnome/autostart
/usr/share/gnome/wm-properties
/usr/share/mimelnk/application
/usr/share/xsessions
/usr/share/applications
/usr/java/jre1.6.0_04/lib/desktop/applications
/usr/java/jre1.6.0_04/plugin/desktop
/usr/local/share/applications
$(HOME)/.config/autostart
$(HOME)/.gnome2/panel2.d/default/launchers
$(HOME)/.local/share/applications

Looking in these files, one can see what the format is supposed to
be and try to add new application--file type associations.  I
believe the appropriate places are /usr/share/applications for
global associations and $(HOME)/.local/share/applications for
associations for the one user.

I have tried this a few times and sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't.  Using nautilus seems more reliable, but I could never
figure out what I was doing wrong.

That having been said, here is a question for somebody more
knowledgeable than me:  There are several file types on my
system (.doc, .pdf) where the exact same application shows up
two or three times on the evolution right-click menu.  How can
I get rid of these duplicates?  I don't see any way to do this
in nautilus.

Regards,
George Reeke, Ph.D.
Head, Laboratory of Biological Modelling
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue
New York, NY  10065
email:  reeke rockefeller edu