Automatically find applications to open files based on MIME type
Presently, when a user tries to open a file in Nautilus whose type has no associated programs, no useful solutions are presented. The current "choose an installed program to open this file" dialog presents a serious usability issue, and should really be considered a last-resort fallback for geeks; most applications have properly registed file type associations so if Nautilus gets to this point in trying to open a file, we can probably give up. The average user, however, does not know this and becomes very confused when presented with, for example, "Text Editor" as an option to open a file. Unlike the proprietary competition, however, Ubuntu is different because we have a proper searchable catalogue of available applications which can be installed! Using gnome-app-install, we can have Nautilus open a search for available programs which can open a particular file type. In this way, users will be immediately presented with solutions to their problems in an intuitive, easy and unique way.
Blueprint information
- Status:
- Not started
- Approver:
- None
- Priority:
- Undefined
- Drafter:
- None
- Direction:
- Needs approval
- Assignee:
- None
- Definition:
- New
- Series goal:
- None
- Implementation:
- Unknown
- Milestone target:
- None
- Started by
- Completed by
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Just popping this up here to get gears turning. I haven't created a Wiki page quite yet. I'll be trying my hand at this soon...
I do know that gnome-app-install can be opened with a search via, for example "gnome-app-install --mime-
-Dylan McCall