Hi Daniel, To summarise our discussion, I have created the following wiki page:
http://wiki.debian.org/MimeTypesSupport = Support of MIME types in Debian packages = == For the command line == MIME support in Debian is formally described in the [http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/mime-policy/ MIME sub-policy], which requests that packages use the update-mime command from the mime-support package. This can be done directly, or indirectly through helper programs, in particular dh_installmime from debhelper. The format of the registration file is described in the mailcap(5) manpage, and many examples can be found in /etc/mailcap. == For the desktop == The MIME system has been reused by Desktop managers in order to associate relevant programs to files. Divergent implementations have been used, but this page focuses on the standard from FreeDesktop.org. Association between a file suffix and file type is done through XML files following the Shared MIME-info Database specification. The Debian package shared-mime-info contains the specification and the program update-mime-database that is used to populate the /usr/share/mime with relevant entries, using the XML file as a source. dh_installmime can be used to simplify the work. Programs are indirectly associated to file suffixes through the association with a file type. This is done through their .desktop file, with the MimeType entry. == In summary, if you use debhelper: == * create a file named by the package name plus .mime as a suffix , containing information in the mailcap format. * create a XML file named by the package name plus .sharedmimeinfo as a suffix, containing information about a given file type, and its usual suffix. * create a destkop entry named by the program name plus .desktop as a suffix, and document inside what file types the program can accept. Install it by yourseld in /usr/share/applications, dh_desktop does not do this at the time this memo is written. * call dh_installmime and dh_desktop == Further readings == * The Debian MIME policy: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/mime-policy/ * The manual pages of update-mime, update-mime-database, dh_installmime, dh_desktop and mailcap. * The Shared MIME info specification: http://standards.freedesktop.org/shared-mime-info-spec/latest * The Desktop entry specification: http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ * The RFCs 2045 and 2048 * More information can be found at http://sourceforge.net/docman/?group_id=159685 Informations to write this page were collected in during a discussion on the debian-mentors mailing list : http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2007/12/msg00398.html [EMAIL PROTECTED] There are still two things I am wondering: - Do the packages need to depend on mime-support and shared-mime-info ? - If two programs can open files with a given suffix, they have to ship the same .sharedmimeinfo file. How can we factorize this code ? Merry christmas to you and everybody else ! -- Charles Plessy http://charles.plessy.org Wakō, Saitama, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
