Linux & application metadata

[Monte Goulding]

> On Thursday, September 25, 2003, at 05:21  PM, Monte Goulding wrote:
> > Just wondering the what, where and how of application metadata on
> > Linux.
> > Specifically I'm interested in file associations but I'm sure other
> > stuff
> > would come in handy. I know UNIX systems usually look into the file to
> > see
> > which app it's associated with but this just doesn't seem logical for a
> > modern operating system with a desktop etc.
>
> You are referring to the "magic number" I guess? The OS can use the
> magic number to distinguish from a binary executable and a shell
> script- but it's not too very useful beyond that.
>
> AFAIK there is no standard UNIX way of binding files to applications-
> this would be handled at the level of the "Window Manager", and there
> are literally dozens of competing Window Managers for UNIX. The most
> popular Linux and BSD ones being KDE and Gnome.
>
> KDE does it with MIME types- other Window Managers probably also use
> MIME types as well, but there is no standard file location or format
> that I know of for this stuff.

I had a feeling it has something to do with MIME types. Ouch... just found
this: http://www.gnome.org/learn/admin-guide/2.2/mimetypes-9.html

But wait! ... http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info-spec/
looks better. Now where do these .desktop files go?

Now I see why I've never released any of my apps on Linux.

Cheers

MOnte