applications <-> mime-types

[Michael Gratton <mike vee net>]

Hi all,

If this is an old thread or is FAQ'ed anywhere, please feel free to
flame, but I've got a few thoughts regarding a possible better way of
using mime-types.

Currently, a particular mime-type and hence corrosponding file has an
application mapped to it for various actions, open, view and edit. When
double-cicking on a particular file, in MC for example, the application
is launched with the filename passed as an argument. A mime-type's
actions are mapped to a particular application. This is simlar, as I
understand it, to Windows handling of file types and seems to work fine
for some cases.

The big problem as I see it occurs when multiple applications are
suitable for performing the same action. For example, I may want to open
an html file in either Communicator or Emacs, or view a jepg in XV, the
Gimp or EE. I realise I can overcome this by dragging and dropping, but
I don't want to have countless application icons on my desktop, drawers
on my panel or applications open (assuming they even *support* drag and
drop) as this leads to a messy, over-crowded desktop. I personally
prefer working in a document-centric manner, not application-centric.

I think a much better way of handling this would be to specify what
mime-types an application is capable of handling. For example,
Communicator would be registered as being able to open/view html and
jpegs but edit html only. Emacs would be registered as being able to
open/view/edit html and the Gimp would be registered as being able to
open/view/edit jpegs. MC or other file managers can then display
appropriate choices for the desired action. Taking it one step futher,
multiple actions could be dispensed with altogether as the concept would
effectively be made obselete.

This method would also centralize adminstration of an application's
properties in Gnome's environment, as all configuration could be done
from the menu-editor, instead of the menu-editor *and* the mime-type
capplet. A small savings, sure, but I think it is far more intuitative
and convenient to have it all in one place.

How would it be done? Good question. I'm still getting familiar with
Gnome so I don't think I could supply a good answer right now, but maybe
somone else could?

What does everyone think?

Mike.

-- 
? Michael Gratton - mike@vee.net
!      "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
> http://web.vee.net/