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I am using multiple desktops / windows managers (KDE, Openbox wm, and i3 wm ) on my PC and I want to establish an unified and universal file where I would set file associations for my whole system.

I am on Arch Linux and from this thread and Arch wiki I concluded that I need to create a /usr/share/applications/mimeapp.list which wasn't working for the guy in a linked thread. He claims file should be renamed to /usr/share/applications/mimeapp.list. Well whatever... This file of mine looks like this: 

[Default Applications]
application/pdf=masterpdfeditor.desktop
image/vnd.djvu=masterpdfeditor.desktop

text/plain=kate.desktop
text/x-markdown=kate.desktop
application/x-shellscript=kate.desktop
text/x-java=kate.desktop
inode/x-empty=kate.desktop
text/x-python=kate.desktop
text/x-readme=kate.desktop
application/x-ruby=kate.desktop
text/x-ruby=kate.desktop
text/x-tex=kate.desktop

text/html=firefox.desktop
text/rhtml=kate.desktop
image/png=gthumb.desktop
image/jpeg=gthumb.desktop
x-scheme-handler/http=firefox.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=firefox.desktop
x-scheme-handler/ftp=firefox.desktop
x-scheme-handler/chrome=firefox.desktop
application/x-extension-htm=firefox.desktop
application/x-extension-html=firefox.desktop
application/x-extension-shtml=firefox.desktop
application/xhtml+xml=firefox.desktop
application/x-extension-xhtml=firefox.desktop
application/x-extension-xht=firefox.desktop
video/ogg=mplayer.desktop
video/x-msvideo=mplayer.desktop
audio/mpeg=mplayer.desktop
video/quicktime=mplayer.desktop
video/webm=mplayer.desktop
video/x-flv=mplayer.desktop
video/mp4=mplayer.desktop
application/ogg=mplayer.desktop
audio/x-flac=mplayer.desktop
audio/mp4=mplayer.desktop
application/x-flash-video=mplayer.desktop

But even if I configured my PC to open .tex files using kate, they are still opened with kile IDE. This happens every time I open this file type in dolphin or thunar.

I figured out that kile and thunar are behaving according to our file associations settings in KDE's systemsettings5 and are completely ignoring defaults.list and I don't want that, because I want to avoid systemsetting's GUI which is clumsy and forces me to click every setting and change it. There are no Bulk actions like resetting / deleting the file associations profile...

QUESTION

So how can I force my Xorg server to use defaults.list and completely ignore systemsettings5? And one more thing... Where does systemsettings5 get it's settings? Is it from the `/usr/share/applications/*.desktop files? What would happen if I delete those?

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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71GA
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    Xorg is only a display server, it has no deal with open files. The default application is always based on your desktop environment (KDE, Openbox wm, and i3 wm ). You have to teach each environments as they want. – Ipor Sircer Aug 30 '16 at 19:35
  • So the question is how do I configure i3 to use my defaults.list and ignore the rest? – 71GA Aug 30 '16 at 20:21
  • You don't configure i3: it isn't the one opening the files. What you need to configure is the mechanism that the application that opens the file is using. Dolphin uses the KDE mechanism, Thunar uses the GTK mechanism. I think they both use the XDG mechanism. You can sometimes get different behavior depending on which desktop environment you're running because the XDG mechanism takes this into account. http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/36380/how-to-properly-and-easy-configure-xdg-open-without-any-enviroment and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Default_applications may help. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Aug 31 '16 at 00:20
  • Oh my god... Thats a confusion... I mean why doesn't X server provide a file for this - Afterall KDE and GTK both use X server... – 71GA Aug 31 '16 at 07:19

0 Answers0