GNOME MIME configuration files

       The  GNOME  system  uses  MIME  types to classify content.
       Each MIME type  on  the  GNOME  system  has  a  number  of
       attributes  attached to it.  Some of these attributes have
       a special meaning to the GNOME system.


MIME type of files

       There are two ways of classifying a file in the GNOME sys­
       tem:  by  matching their extension or a regular expression
       with their name or by its content.  GNOME applications use
       one of those two methods depending on speed contraints and
       the specific setup.  The MIME types available on the  sys­
       tem  can be configured at runtime by putting special files
       in either the GNOME MIME directory  (/usr/share/mime-info)
       or the user ~/.gnome/mime-info directory.


MIME type definition files.

       The  routines  that  classify  a file by its name, use the
       contents of all of the files with the extension .mime from
       the  /usr/share/mime-info directory and the ~/.gnome/mime-
       info to build the database  for  filename  matching.   The
       latter  is supported to enable users to provide their mime
       types to extend the system defaults.

       Application that wish to install their own MIME types only
       need to install a file in this directory.

       The file /usr/share/mime-info/gnome.mime is special, as it
       contains the defaults for gnome, and is  read  first.   In
       addition,  the  file  ~/.gnome/mime-info/user.mime is read
       last.  This will guarantee that there is a way to set sys­
       tem  defaults, and there is a way for the user to override
       them.  There is currently no way to  tell  anything  about
       the  order of the other files in those directories, nor is
       there anyway to override system defaults yet.

       The format is the following:

       mime-type-name
            ext[,priority]: ext1 ext2 ext3
            ext[,priority]: ext4
            regex[,priority]: regex1
            regex[,priority]: regex2

       where "mime-type-name" is a valid MIME type.  For  example
       "text/plain".

       For  example, for a vCalendar application, this file would
       be installed:

       ------ calendar.mime  -------

            ext: vcf
       -----------------------------


MIME key information

       To add keys to a MIME type, it is necessary to  install  a
       file  with the extension .keys in the /usr/share/mime-info
       directory or in  the  ~/.gnome/mime-info  directory.   The
       former  is  for  system-provided  mime-information and the
       latter is to enable the user to extend the actions as pro­
       vided by the system.

       The file /usr/share/mime-info/gnome.keys is special, as it
       contains the defaults for gnome, and is  read  first.   In
       addition,  the  file  ~/.gnome/mime-info/user.keys is read
       last.  This will guarantee that there is a way to set sys­
       tem  defaults, and there is a way for the user to override
       them.  There is currently no way to  tell  anything  about
       the  order of the other files in those directories, nor is
       there anyway to override system defaults yet.

       The .keys files have the following format:

       mime-type-match:
            []key=value

       Above, the key is the key that is being defined and  value
       is  the  value  we bind to it.  The optional [LANG] repre­
       sents a language in which this definition  is  valid.   If
       this  part  is specified, then the definition will only be
       valid if LANG matches the setting of the environment vari­
       able LANG.  The LANG setting is used to provide keys which
       can be displayed to the user in a localized way.

       This is an example to bind the key  open  to  all  of  the
       mime-types  matching  image/* and the icon-filename key is
       bound to the /opt/gimp/share/xcf.png value:

       image/*:
            open=gimp %f

       image/x-xcf:
               icon-filename=/opt/gimp/share/xcf.png

       This will make the GIMP the handler for the  open  action.
       Files  of  type  xcf would use the filename pointed in the
       icon-filename key.

       %f gets interpolated with the file name  or  the  list  of
       file names that matched this mime-type.

       As  you  can see from the example above, a .keys file does
       not need to provide all of the values, it can just provide


       User  defined  bindings in .keys file will take precedence
       over system installed files.


Special key used by the GNOME system

       The following keys are currently used in the  GNOME  desk­
       top:

       open

              Open the file with this command.

       icon-filename

              The  filename  with the icon that should be used to
              represent files of this type.

       view

              Command to view the file contents.

       ascii-view

              A command that should be used to do  an  ascii-ren­
              dering  of  the  file.   Used  as a fallback by the
              filemanager if a view action does not exist.

       fm-open

              file-manager open.  If present,  the  file  manager
              will  use  this action instead of the value in open
              to perform this action (the filemanager for example
              will open archive files as if they were directories
              by using the VFS).

       fm-view

              file-manager view.  If present, invoking  the  view
              opertion  on  the  file  manager will use the value
              defined here instead of the value in "view".

       fm-ascii-view

              Fallback operation for the file manager as well.

       Those keys are also queried on the metadata (except in the
       cases where the lookup would be too expensive).


AUTHOR

       This  manual  page  has  been  written  by Miguel de Icaza
       (miguel@gnu.org)



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