default applications for xserver specified by mime types #5966

matejc · 2015-01-25T22:32:55Z

A much needed feature!

This works in enlightenment and should work in other window/desktop managers, I haven't touched any specific window/desktop manager settings.

When you set

services.xserver.defaultApps = [
    {mimetypes = ["text/plain" "text/css"]; exec = "${pkgs.sublime3}/bin/sublime";}
    {mimetypes = ["image/png" "image/jpeg" "image/gif" "image/x-apple-ios-png"]; exec = "${pkgs.e19.ephoto}/bin/ephoto";}
    {
        mimetypes = ["video/x-msvideo" "video/mp4" "application/mp4" "video/x-m4v" "video/x-ms-wmv"
            "video/x-matroska" "video/quicktime"];
        exec = "${pkgs.mpv}/bin/mpv --hwdec=vdpau --vo=vdpau --no-terminal --force-window";
    }
];

then for example: plain text files beside css files should be opened by sublime text editor.

Right mime types are tricky to find and different applications see for the same file differently, for example:
Mimetype image/png is supposed to match png files, but enlightenment_filemanager sees this as image/x-apple-ios-png.

And yes, I know that I am creating two the same files named differently: defaults.list and mimeapps.list, the first one should be deprecated but for example enlightenment file manager uses it (I strace'd it).

Suggestions and questions are more than welcome before merging.

offlinehacker · 2015-01-25T23:21:03Z

Looks cool :)

matejc · 2015-01-26T06:23:35Z

Please do try it out in your desktop environment.

pSub · 2015-01-29T11:26:08Z

Looks really cool, I will try to give it a try on the weekend.

vcunat · 2015-01-29T15:22:59Z

Looks nice, although I'm not sure if having it under services is the best places, as it looks mostly a user-specific thing. Maybe we could factor the core out into something like pkgs.mkDefaultApps which could then be just added to systemPackages or installed via nix-env or activated by the option you suggest.

But I guess we can do such improvements later, even move this into another place if we find a better one.

matejc · 2015-01-30T20:09:37Z

I like the pkgs.mkDefaultApps idea. I will refactor few things that are bothering me and move the script somewhere else (any suggestions?), but I will leave services.xserver.defaultApps, at least for now.

edolstra · 2015-01-30T21:03:19Z

Hm, not sure what this is for. Users shouldn't need to specify MIME type associations, applications should do that by creating an appropriate .desktop file in $out/share/applications.

matejc · 2015-01-30T21:55:27Z

@edolstra at least in E19 and i3 (that I tested), that way is not really working that well - well its not. Probably because new entries can not be auto-added to $out/share/applications/mimeapps.list because it is read-only.
defaults.list should be deprecated but some desktop managers still use it... otherwise defaults.list == mimeapps.list.

The modern method to start applications is using Desktop entries. This way, programs can advertise which kind of files (to be exact: what MIME-types) they can open. For instance, gimp.desktop states MimeType=image/bmp;image/gif;....

freedesktop.org recommends how to specify default (preferred) applications for MIME-types in their Association between MIME types and applications standard. This involves writing into files called mimeapps.list

Taken from: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Default_applications

Entries inside mimeapps.list and those mimetype entries inside .desktop files are not solving the same problem. mimeapps.list are setting default apps. And entries inside .desktop files are there for desktop managers or various apps for the way of knowing what apps can open what files. There is one more file that I should mention... ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list, when you open an app that is inside $out/share/applications/defaults.list it will copy that entry to the file (~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list) inside your home. The result is that we get deterministic way to set default apps for specific file types, which is what I was looking for.
As far as I tested this pull request, it works in E19 and KDE5.

vcunat · 2015-01-31T07:42:27Z

For systemPackages the mime database should be fine thanks to https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/config/system-path.nix#L126 (which is not done with nix-env).

matejc · 2015-01-31T08:08:59Z

yeah, I know, I am still figuring out how to solve that, I can not just run the update-mime-database because on system rebuild, it would do that twice, and this command takes its time to run, probably as an input parameter like ... pkgs.makeDefaultApps { inherit applist; updateMimeDatabase = true; };

or there is another solution... throw out this 3 lines: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/config/system-path.nix#L128
like the comment is somehow suggesting that: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/config/system-path.nix#L125

... what do you say?

matejc · 2015-01-31T11:41:08Z

I found a bug that has a bigger priority...
(At least) in E19 it has own cache for default apps, and it only refreshes when desktop file name changes, example:
desktop file name is generated from:

name = (zeroArgv (lastInPath exec));

ex: from /nix/store/hash-app-0.1/bin/app --switch1 arg1 -> name == "app"

so it does not distinguish these entries:

exec = "/nix/store/hash-app-0.1/bin/app --switch1 arg1"

and

exec = "/nix/store/hash-app-0.1/bin/app"

and

exec = "app"

Solution 1: get a hash (somehow - runCommand?) from exec parameter and stick it in the name example "${name}-${hash}.desktop", (the desktopName - the name which we see inside for example file managers.. will stay the same - without hash in its name), with this solution I can not use the hash from the file path as path can be like this: "/run/current-system/sw/bin/app", but this solution seems over-engineered...

suggestions?

matejc · 2015-01-31T12:26:56Z

fixed the last one.. I knew I saw builtins.hashString somewhere before... its quite a small fix, and it works, I like

matejc · 2015-01-31T21:23:55Z

This pull request is ready to try out in different desktop environments
and just to recap: it works with the services.xserver.defaultApps option which adds a package to systemPackages with appropriate desktop, mimeapps.list and defaults.list files, example is in the code and on the top of this pull request. You might need to re-login or restart your desktop manager service.

matejc · 2015-01-31T23:31:28Z

added support for xdg-open with fallback to mimeopen which uses .cache file

matejc · 2015-02-10T23:05:05Z

add option noDisplay to make-desktopitem/default.nix and make all generated desktop files to NoDisplay=true so they do not appear in menus
add only one file per multiple mimetypes
a bit of refactoring
rebased to master

PS: Has anyone already tried this feature on their setup?

domenkozar · 2017-06-20T15:56:30Z

I'm going to close this, we can introduce declarative configuration for mimetypes, but it shouldn't be specific to X11.

For example: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AddingMimeTypes

matejc added the 2.status: work-in-progress label Jan 30, 2015

matejc force-pushed the defaultapplications branch from 1fae829 to dd2a2e8 Compare January 30, 2015 21:59

matejc self-assigned this Jan 31, 2015

matejc force-pushed the defaultapplications branch from dd2a2e8 to e7aafc6 Compare January 31, 2015 13:01

matejc force-pushed the defaultapplications branch from e7aafc6 to 64723a8 Compare January 31, 2015 23:29

default applications for xserver specified by mime types

a18df93

matejc force-pushed the defaultapplications branch from 64723a8 to a18df93 Compare February 10, 2015 22:56

joachifm added the 2.status: merge conflict label Mar 14, 2016

domenkozar closed this Jun 20, 2017

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default applications for xserver specified by mime types #5966

default applications for xserver specified by mime types #5966

matejc commented Jan 25, 2015

offlinehacker commented Jan 25, 2015

matejc commented Jan 26, 2015

pSub commented Jan 29, 2015

vcunat commented Jan 29, 2015

matejc commented Jan 30, 2015

edolstra commented Jan 30, 2015

matejc commented Jan 30, 2015

vcunat commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Feb 10, 2015

domenkozar commented Jun 20, 2017

default applications for xserver specified by mime types #5966

default applications for xserver specified by mime types #5966

Conversation

matejc commented Jan 25, 2015

offlinehacker commented Jan 25, 2015

matejc commented Jan 26, 2015

pSub commented Jan 29, 2015

vcunat commented Jan 29, 2015

matejc commented Jan 30, 2015

edolstra commented Jan 30, 2015

matejc commented Jan 30, 2015

vcunat commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Jan 31, 2015

matejc commented Feb 10, 2015

domenkozar commented Jun 20, 2017