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This is an old revision of ApplicationEntry made by darkcity on 2012-02-06 12:51:31.

 

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How to make File Associations


There are two ways to associate file-types in Puppy. The first is the by setting the 'default action' when clicking a certain file type. The second is creating an option in the File 'filename' menu when file is 'right-clicked'.

'Right-click' Association

MIME-Types are used to standardised file-types. The 'Right-click' options are stored in
/root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith

There is a directory for each mime-type in use, for example the MIME-Type directory for image/jpeg becomes .image_jpeg

A shortcut for getting to this directory is to right-click on a jpeg and select
File 'filename.jpg' > Customise Menu ...

Typically the MIME-type directories are filled with links to ROX AppDirs stored at /usr/local/apps
If the application/action you want is already in this directory simply create a link in the MIME-type directory.

If not then create an AppDir. They consist of a directory containing three files-

Appinfo.xml - information about app in xml
AppRun - script to run program
.DirIcon - image file icon for directory (many apps have an icon stored in /usr/share/pixmaps which you can link)

These typically contain the following - using AbiWord as an example-

Appinfo.xml -
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<AppInfo>
  <Summary>Abiword text editor</Summary>
</AppInfo>


AppRun -
#!/bin/sh
exec abiword  "$@"


The "S@" passes the file clicked on to the application.

To pass a file to a WINE program see the follow example with Irfanview

AppRun -
#!/bin/sh
# Purpose: To convert Unix filename to DOS style to pass as an argument
# to wine when starting IrfanView from filer.
#
FileName="z:"${1//\//\\}
exec wine 'C:\\Program Files\\IrfanView\\i_view32.exe' $FileName


'Default Action' Association
To set the 'default action' of a file-type follow the following instructions (modified from this thread)

1. Check if your file-type has a MIME-type entry in Puppy Linux. They are stored in the text file /usr/share/mime/globs
If file-type is already associated to the correct MIME-type jump to step 2.

Add or edit your MIME-Type to file-type definition. For example, if you have a TextMaker file whose extension is .tmd and your making a non-standard MIME-type application/x-tmd append the code application/x-tmd:*.tmd to the globs file. ENSURE you end the line with a 'return' otherwise it won't work.

(The x- in the MIME-type name above is used to indicate that this type hasn't already been registered with the MIME-type authorities (www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/ media-types). i.e. It is a non-standard/private/local type, not an IANA officially registered one.)

2. Create an executable shell script in /usr/local/bin , for starting up the TextMaker program and passing the 'clicked on' file to it. For our example, .tmd files, we will associate to TextMaker. We'll make a script called textmaker (though it could be anything you like) to it:

textmaker -
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/textmaker/tml "$@"


You don't need the path to executable (in this case /usr/local/textmaker/) if it is in a directory that part of your Linux PATH environment variable.

If textmaker was a WINE program then the script might be-
textmaker -
#!/bin/sh
# Purpose: To convert Unix filename to DOS style to pass as an argument
# to wine when starting IrfanView from filer.
#
FileName="z:"${1//\//\\}
exec wine 'C:\\Program Files\\TextMaker\\TextMaker.exe' $FileName



3. Finally, tell ROX filer to open that run script when you click on a file-type of that MIME-type. To do that you create a short executable shell script in /root/Choices/MIME-types named after the MIME-type. In our example the MIME type was application/x-tmd, so the file becomes application_x-tmd-

application_x-tmd
%%#!/bin/sh
exec textmaker "$1"

An alternative to step 3. is to use 'Set Run Action' i.e right click on the file-type and enter a shell command for the file type. In our example it would be exec textmaker "$1".

NOTE this will save MIME-Type run action in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/MIME-types rather than /root/Choices/MIME-types. ~This method will takes precedence over using /root/Choices/MIME-types (i.e. ROX looks to /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/MIME-types first).


""AppDirs"" on ROX desktop - in Puppy AppDirs are only used for file associations rather than containing the whole apps

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