- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_desktop_recommending_your_program_for_opening_its_files_.html">Is the desktop recommending your program for opening its files?</a></div>
- <div class="date">29th January 2023</div>
- <div class="body"><p>Linux desktop systems
-<a href="https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html">have
-standardized</a> how programs present themselves to the desktop
-system. If a package include a .desktop file in
-/usr/share/applications/, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Xfce and the other desktop
-environments will pick up the file and use its content to generate the
-menu of available programs in the system. A lesser known fact is that
-a package can also explain to the desktop system how to recognize the
-files created by the program in question, and use it to open these
-files on request, for example via a GUI file browser.</p>
-
-<p>A while back I ran into a package that did not tell the desktop
-system how to recognize its files and was not used to open its files
-in the file browser and fixed it. In the process I wrote a simple
-debian/tests/ script to ensure the setup keep working. It might be
-useful for other packages too, to ensure any future version of the
-package keep handling its own files.</p>
-
-<p>For this to work the file format need a useful MIME type that can
-be used to identify the format. If the file format do not yet have a
-MIME type, it should define one and preferably also
-<a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">register
-it with IANA</a> to ensure the MIME type string is reserved.</p>
-
-<p>The script uses the <tt>xdg-mime</tt> program from xdg-utils to
-query the database of standardized package information and ensure it
-return sensible values. It also need the location of an example file
-for xdg-mime to guess the format of.</p>
-
-<pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-#
-# Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
-# License: GPL v2 or later at your choice.
-#
-# Validate the MIME setup, making sure motor types have
-# application/vnd.openmotor+yaml associated with them and is connected
-# to the openmotor desktop file.
-
-retval=0
-
-mimetype="application/vnd.openmotor+yaml"
-testfile="test/data/real/o3100/motor.ric"
-mydesktopfile="openmotor.desktop"
-
-filemime="$(xdg-mime query filetype "$testfile")"
-
-if [ "$mimetype" != "$filemime" ] ; then
- retval=1
- echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file MIME type is $filemine, not $mimetype"
-else
- echo "success: xdg-mime report correct mime type $mimetype for motor file"
-fi
-
-desktop=$(xdg-mime query default "$mimetype")
-
-if [ "$mydesktopfile" != "$desktop" ]; then
- retval=1
- echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file should be handled by $desktop, not $mydesktopfile"
-else
- echo "success: xdg-mime agree motor file should be handled by $mydesktopfile"
-fi
-
-exit $retval
-</pre>
-
-<p>It is a simple way to ensure your users are not very surprised when
-they try to open one of your file formats in their file browser.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
- Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
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