Re: Mime Type Analysis

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Steinar Bang <sb metis no> writes:

> >>>>> Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>:
> 
> > * Nonstandard MIME types - should we try to standardize on this cross
> >   desktop? For instance, gnome-vfs has types of x-directory/normal,
> >   x-directory/webdav, x-special/device-block, x-special/device-char
> >   and the like.
> 
> Hm... what about MIME types for help files?
> 
> If the goal for an application is to use the running desktop's help
> browser, to display its DocBook XML or HTML files, what would be the
> best way to accomplish this?
> 
> To have the desktop overwrite settings for MIME types in the user's
> HOME directory when it starts?  That would break if the user has two X 
> displays up with one running KDE and one running Gnome.
> 
> To use different sets of help MIME types, eg. application/x-kde-help-docbook, 
> and application/x-gnome-help-docbook, have the KDE and Gnome
> libraries detect which desktop the application they are part of is
> running under, and use the corect help MIME types for desktops?  This
> doesn't scale beyond KDE and Gnome.
> 

I suggest just text/docbook (or is it x-docbook? dunno). Applications
launching help will not, in general, invoke a generic,
desktop-independent mime handler. They will launch their preferred
help browser on a help: URI or the like. I don't think this is a big
concern.

 - Maciej