Re: [Nautilus-list] Open with Other -- how does this work, anyway?

[Darin Adler <darin bentspoon com>]

on 11/1/01 1:48 PM, David Moles at david moles vykor com wrote:

> It's helpful to know now where (gnome-vfs) Nautilus is getting this
> information and how (as you explained above) gnome-vfs makes those
> decisions. I still think it's icky from a usability perspective --
> icky as in unpredictable and confusing -- but it's not a Nautilus
> problem except inasmuch as I think it would be helpful to be able
> to access some of the file-types-capplet functionality directly
> from within Nautilus, e.g. being able to just associate an app with
> the type of the selected file, without having to open up the whole
> list of file types, necessarily, and manually enter everything.

The part that is unpredictable is basically the magic number business. But
it's hard to see how to improve that other than fixing bugs and improving
the magic number table. Do you have any specific ideas?

Sounds like you think that we could also improve things by adding more of
this configuration within Nautilus, perhaps in the properties window. People
have tried this before, but got stuck on the details of what the user
interface would be like and in the annoying relationship between determining
the type of a file, and determining what application to open it with --
separate but closely-related things. Would you care to take a crack at it?
I'd love the help!

> Also, it would be nice if, when "Do you want to go [to the File
> Types control panel] now?" fails, Nautilus would provide some kind
> of error dialog rather than failing silently.

That would be good too. Can you help with either of these?

>> The way to do this as an end user is to use the "File Types and Programs"
>> panel.
> 
> Can you add to the magic database that way, or can you only create
> MIME types based on extensions?

Extensions only. A good user interface for adding magic numbers would be a
challenge.

> Okay. I will try to figure out who they are and suggest it to them.
> Maybe I should subscribe to the gnome-vfs mailing list and complain
> there instead. :)

Good idea.

>> That's a separate problem, a mistake in the design of part (b) of the
>> gnome-vfs MIME type system. It has been fixed on HEAD for the next release
>> of gnome-vfs. In general, we could use some fancier ways for the extension
>> rules to interact with the magic number and hard-coded rules. The question
>> is, if a file's contents look like one thing, but it's extension says
>> another, which wins?
> 
> Interesting question. Maybe there should be some concept of combinations
> of extensions and magic numbers? E.g., if I have a ZIP archive with a
> .sxw extension, it's a StarOffice document, but if I have, oh, a TIFF
> image or something, the fact that it's called foo.sxw can probably be
> ignored?

That would be the most-complete solution. But I fear that adding a feature
along those lines could make things even more confusing, even if it also
makes it possible to make the rules for identifying files even more perfect.
Please do raise these on the gnome-vfs list. I'm pretty busy with the
Nautilus port to gnome 2 right now, but someone there might have more time
to look into this.

    -- Darin