https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=305136
--- Comment #13 from nyanpasu64 <nyanpas...@tuta.io> --- Decided to install GNOME to see how it handles default applications. I had a lot less "mishmash of broken settings and broken default applications" this time around, compared to my last attempt at multiple DEs. GNOME has a "Default Applications" settings page. It works by writing dozens of file associations into ~/.config/mimeapps.list (this file applies to all DEs). If you set VLC as your default audio player, GNOME will first set "audio/x-vorbis+ogg" to launch VLC by default, then set every MIME type supported by VLC matching "audio/*" to launch VLC by default (skipping VLC's video MIME types, and audio/* MIME types that VLC doesn't support). This is a useful tool to set default apps (though it doesn't have the option to exclude specific file types from being assigned to your new default app, which is sometimes useful). Unfortunately KDE has no equivalent convenient tool to change MIME types. Fortunately gnome-control-center also changes default apps in KDE, though it might come with a lot of GNOME dependencies (not sure). In summary, GNOME doesn't follow InitialPreference like KDE does, resulting in suboptimal file associations. However GNOME makes it easy (unlike in KDE) for each user to set entire categories of MIME types to a single default app. (IDK if GNOME updates your account-local mimeapps.list's [Added Associations] or [Default Applications] when you install or uninstall apps.) So merely installing GNOME and setting default apps once is enough to fix file associations globally in all DEs, for as long as you use the same computer and user account. (There's a *lot* more depth including bugs where GNOME mixes up MIME aliases, but I don't know where to publish my writeup or whether to file a bug report.) I don't know if GNOME defaults to something dumb (like Wine Internet Explorer) for PDF files by default though, requiring manual fixing for each filetype (which is worse than KDE using good defaults out of the box). I still don't know the best route to take from now on, whether to convince GNOME to support InitialPreference, to write my own converter from InitialPreference to mimeapps.list, or from InitialPreference to mimeinfo.cache (replacing update-desktop-database). ---- Also, I think KDE needs an equivalent to GNOME's "Default Applications" settings page. (There's an old closed bug at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211147, mentioning default images/videos which can be implemented like GNOME, but also default office suites which is more complex.) KDE Default Applications's current architecture is located at https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/tree/master/kcms/componentchooser. It uses one C++ class per item (eg. the default browser is controlled by componentchooserbrowser.h/cpp) and hard-codes the logic used for each item. It currently lacks any items which use globs to change many MIME types in bulk. One way to rewrite it is in a more data-driven approach like GNOME's at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/-/blob/6c816e79e83383c11a07ab6a734cd8350c6c330e/panels/default-apps/cc-default-apps-panel.c#L27-35. However I don't know if doing so would lose out on functionality currently unique to each C++ class, like ComponentChooserBrowser using a BrowserSettings object. It seems that KDE Default Applications (at least "Web browser" and "File manager") also applies to other desktop environments, but I haven't researched how/why. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are watching all bug changes.
