file types and programs

[Bob McClure Jr]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 06:16:02PM -0600, Fred Grant wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-03-14 at 14:19, Bob McClure Jr wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 01:53:44PM -0600, Fred Grant wrote:
> > > <snippage>
> > > 
> > > Thanks Bob, you pointed me in the right direction.I did this with
> > > Mozilla preferences to avoid having to "get under the hood" of the
> > > system.
> > > 
> > > I'd still like to set Acrobat to be the default for reading pdf files I
> > > have saved.  I find the Gnome help pages confusing.  The form we are
> > > suppose to use to change these file types and programs asks for a
> > > protocol without explaining what that is.  The form won't accept a path
> > > name either.  Can you help on this?
> > > 
> > > Thanks
> > 
> > Hmm.  I don't know what that's about.  I don't use GNOME regularly, so
> > I had to log out of my AfterStep session and bring up GNOME.  I did a
> > little poking around and found this to suggest.  Go to your start
> > button (lower-left corner of screen.  Select Preferences -> File Types
> > and Programs.  Then, in the dialog box, click on the little |> next to
> > Documents to open it up.  Then do the same for Published Materials,
> > and you'll see "PDF document".  Click on that, and then hit the "Edit"
> > button, and fix it the way you want it.  If Adobe is in your PATH
> > (from a terminal window, type "which <adobe's_name>" and it will show
> > up if it is in your PATH), you can specify the program name without
> > the path.
> > 
> > Hope that helps.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> 
> I think you put your finger on it.  The PATH is probably the problem and
> needs to be edited.  You'd be a hero if you could tell me how to use the
> gui text editor to do it (even how to find the file PATH is in).  I'm
> not ready for vi yet!

Neither am I.  IMHO, vi is a primitive (and arcane) editor that you
use while you're getting Emacs installed.  (Excuse me while I go
change into my Nomex BVDs.)

That said, Emacs isn't exactly for the newbie, either.  But, for text
editors, pico is very friendly.

Now, about PATH.  In general, your PATH is set from /etc/profile.
That will include at least /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin and probably
some X11/bin as well.  Mine at the moment is

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/bob/bin:/home/bob/bin

Hmm.  I just noticed that I have /usr/local/bin in there three times.
And ~/bin twice.  Ought to fix that.

The best place to augment your PATH is in your ~/.profile or
~/.bash_profile.  If you have both files, add it in both.  I think
your GUI will come up after reading .profile, but bash (your
command-line shell) will prefer .bash_profile.  Let's suppose you want
to add /opt/bin to your PATH.  Do it this way:

PATH=$PATH:/opt/bin

Two notes: Windoze (and DOS before it) users are used to having "."
(the current directory) in their PATH.  In UNIX/Linux, that is
considered a Bad Idea(tm), especially for root, because some
unscrupulous (l)user (or cracker) could stick a script in your HOME
directory, say, "ls".  Then when you run "ls" to get a directory
listing, you are executing who knows what.

Second, if your PATH contains "::" in the middle or ":" at the
beginning or end, you have included the current directory.  The ":" is
a PATH separator, and a null entry is the same as ".".

> There must be a reason you are using AfterStep.  If it's more user
> friendly I'd like to look into it.

No, I wouldn't say it's more user friendly, but it does occupy a
smaller footprint (no GNOME pun intended :-).  It comes up faster,
supports virtual desktops (desktops larger than your screen), and
partial panning of the desktop.  Current stable version is 1.8.11, but
2.0beta4 is available.  (I'm using 1.8.11 - the beta has a few major
problems for me.)  Both can be found at

http://www.afterstep.org/

GNOME and KDE are better for the transition from Windoze, but there
are many other options available.  I'll not give web sites since you
can Google for them easily.  The lightweight screamers are BlackBox,
IceWM, WindowMaker, FluxBox, and twm.  When you start them up, you'll
be saying, "Is that it?  Is it done, already?"  Next up the scale
might be FVWM(2) and AfterStep.  There are likely others, but I've
played around with all those.  AS is still my preferred WM.

If you play with any of those, also get MenuMaker (mmaker is the
executable).  It scans the executables in your PATH and makes menu
entries for all the ones it recognises.  Most but not all of those WMs
are supported by mmaker.  The others have adequate documentation to
figure out how to roll your own.

> Thanks again

Whew!  That was likely more information than you requested, but, well,
I get carried away, sometimes.

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
robertmcclure at earthlink.net  http://www.bobcatos.com
Life is short.  Pray hard.