[Fedora-packaging] Re: Calling graphical tools generically e.g. text editor

[Axel Thimm]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 04:57:06PM +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 09:46:15AM -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
> > Patrice Dumas wrote:
> >>
> >> I am not sure that it covers what is wanted here. With xdg-open, it is
> >> likely that on text an editor is opened, but it could also be a viewer.
> >> For the diff I don't know. But for directory browsing, I am not sure
> >> that it will work, on my system, it uses kdesvn because it registered
> >> MimeType=inode/directory;
> >>
> >> Maybe it is just that inode/directory should be reserved for directory  
> >> browsers, and text for editors and not viewers.
> >
> > Correct, use of any sort of "default" app, assumes that mimetypes for  
> > the opened targets are configured properly.
> 
> But for text, you cannot know if a viewer or an editor is the right one. 
> The most common mimetype seems to be text/plain and it cannot convey
> this information. I think that in the mailcap format there was such a
> distinction possible, but I am not sure that it exists for freedesktop
> stuff.
> 
> Regarding the inode/directory mimetype, it isn't obvious that kdesvn
> isn't right. Point is that here there is an action that is wanted in
> addition to a object type, and xdg-open can only do the somewhat fuzzy
> action of 'opening'. Maybe we don't need more and consider that the action
> really associated with opening is in fact set by the application we
> choose to associate with the mimetype. Put more clearly if we want that
> 'opening' a text/plain file stands for 'editing' a text/plain file we
> should just make sure that all the apps associated with text/plain are
> editors and not viewers.

xdg-open seems to be geared towards reading/viewing instead of
editing. At least the documenation stated for example that

xdg-open /tmp/foobar.png

Opens the PNG image file /tmp/foobar.png in the user's default image
viewing application.

E.g. it would probably not open in gimp, but in some lightweight png
viewer.

Maybe xdg-open needs two modes, read-only and editing?
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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