Where the Settings Live

Documentation / Contents - File Handlers

• Overview of File Handlers
  • The Pair
  • What a File Type Is
• Opening a File
  • What Happens When You Open Something
  • Opening With a Particular Tool
• The File Handlers Panel
  • The File Type List
  • The Opens With List
  • The Detail Line
  • The Buttons
• Choosing a Handler
  • Auto-Pick Best
  • Try It
  • Opening Nothing
• Icons
  • The Available Icons List
  • Set Icon
• Creating New Files
• The Canonical Panel
• Where the Settings Live
  • The Master List
  • The Rule Files
  • The Ranking Tables
• From the Command Line
• Copyright Information

Where the Settings Live

Four kinds of file are involved. Two are yours, two are shipped.

Yours, under ~/.cyanotype/ :

cyopen.conf                                your master list
share/cytype/rules.d/50-handlers.cytype    the mirror

Shipped, under the share directory:

cytype/rules.d/00-default.cytype    the shipped types
cyopen/handlers.rank                the open ranking
cyopen/create.rank                  the create recipes

The Master List

cyopen.conf is what the panel writes and what you would edit by hand. It is a plain text file, one block per type:

# cyopen.conf -- master type -> icon -> helper list

PlainText
  icon text
  open nedit %s

Video
  icon video
  open NONE

"%s" is where the file's path is substituted. "open NONE" means show the icon and never launch anything; see Choosing a Handler.

The Rule Files

The type system proper reads rule files with the extension .cytype, from a rules.d directory. They say which suffixes and which contents make which type, and they carry each type's icon and open command.

Apply writes your choices into cyopen.conf and MIRRORS the icon and open lines into 50-handlers.cytype, which is the file the type library and the File Manager actually read. Two files, one edit; the mirror is what makes the change visible to the rest of the desktop.

The shipped 00-default.cytype defines the stock types: Directory, Executable, PlainText, Generic, Image, Audio, Video, PDF, PostScript, Archive, Html, Source and more. Rules are first match wins, and the number in the file name is what orders them, which is why your 50- file overlays the shipped 00- one.

The Ranking Tables

handlers.rank    which apps open which class
create.rank      which apps create which kind

Both are data, not code. They can be edited and retuned without rebuilding anything, which is the point of keeping them as tables. See Choosing a Handler and Creating New Files.

Seeing What Is Actually Set

cyopen --list        every known type and its handler
cyopen --classes     the handler classes
cyopen --discover    what is installed here

--list is the quick answer to "what opens this". --discover is the quick answer to "why is my program not offered": if it is not in that list, it was not found.