The File Handlers Panel

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

The File Handlers Panel

Open the panel by running cyopen-prefs. Its window is titled "File Handlers", and under the title bar it says what it edits: "File Handlers -- type, icon (FTI/SVG), helper".

Three lists run across the window, with an icon field and a detail line under them, and buttons along the bottom.

File Type          every type the desktop knows
Opens With         what could open the selected type
Available Icons    icons you could give it

The File Type List

One row per type, each with its current icon drawn beside it, so the list is also a preview of what the File Manager will show. Select a type and the other two lists fill in for it.

The Opens With List

The candidates for the selected type, best first. Each row starts with a mark that tells you where it stands:

>    the handler currently assigned to this type
*    installed on this machine, but not the current choice
.    not installed here

After the mark comes the rank, the kind of application, the program name, and where it was found, or "(not installed)". The current row also carries the word current, in square brackets, at the end.

>  10  motif   nedit  /usr/bin/nedit   current
*  20  curses  vim    /usr/bin/vim
.  30  gtk     gedit  (not installed)

The list is the ranking table filtered through what is actually on this machine. That is why a row can be ranked above another and still not be chosen: it is not installed.

Click a row to make it the handler for the selected type. Nothing is written until you press Apply.

If no handler class covers the selected type, the list says so in a single row: "(no handler class covers this type)".

The Detail Line

A line under the lists that describes the current selection: the type, the handler command as it will be run, and where it came from. Read it before pressing Apply.

The Buttons

Help              open this book
Auto-Pick Best    fill every type with no handler
Try It            run the handler on a sample file
Set Icon          give it the icon in the field
Apply             write the settings
Close             dismiss the panel

Apply is the only button that writes anything. Auto-Pick Best, Try It and Set Icon change what is on screen, or run something, and leave the writing to Apply. See Choosing a Handler and Icons.

Click for Help

The panel carries the click-for-help mechanism: several controls explain themselves when you use it. The Apply button, for instance, says exactly which two files it writes.