"Places" -> "Recent documents" file associations different from Nautilus

[Sid]

To open PDF files in nautilus, I've set up the file association to use Acrobat Reader. Once I open the document, it goes into the "Recent Documents" list under "Places". Now if I click the same document under "Recent Documents", it uses evince to open that document. Ideally, it should use the same file associations at both places.

Architecture: i686
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04 (Beta)
Uname: Linux cypher 2.6.24-14-generic #1 SMP Thu Apr 3 04:49:29 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, that is likely a duplicate though

[mikey (abc-mikey)]

I would like to confirm the same kind of behaviour in opening .doc documents. The application is selected by default in nautilus as AbiWord but recent documents says it can't find the application.

Architecture: PowerPCt
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04 (Beta)
Uname: Linux mac 2.6.25 #1 PREEMPT Tue Apr 22 12:23:57 BST 2008 ppc GNU/Linux

[kanem (jkanem)]

I also get this problem on a fresh install of 8.04 final. Changing the default application for these filetypes have no effect on what application is used to open them through the Recent Documents list. Text still opens with Gedit, movies with Totem, images with EOG, etc, regardless of what application they open with through Nautilus.

If a new filetype that an Ubuntu install is not familiar with is associated with an application, trying to open it through Recent Documents results in an error of "Could not find a suitable application."

This problem does not exist in the Fedora 9 preview release, which suggests this is not an upstream bug.

Sebastien, this is the only bug concerning this that I found in a search. Did you have a particular one in mind?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you describe the exact steps you use to get the bug? That's surprising that redhat doesn't have the bug, maybe they distro change something

[kanem (jkanem)]

Upon further testing it seems the problem is more subtle than I thought, and is probably present in Fedora. I'll have to do more testing there to see.

It seems as if things are fine in Ubuntu if you change the default application for a filetype to one of Ubuntu's pre-installed apps.

Here's how to reproduce in Ubuntu 8.04 using Abiword and VLC as an example:

1. install Abiword or VLC.
2. Go to Properties of a sample .txt or .doc file and change the "Open with" option from Text Editor (Gedit) to Abiword.
    or
    Go to Properties of a sample .avi file and change the "Open with" option from Movie Player (Totem) to VLC.
3. Observe how opening the file in Nautilus results in the .txt file opening with Abiword and the .avi file opening with VLC, as they should.
4. Observe how opening the file through the Recent Documents list opens the .txt file with Gedit and the .avi file with Totem.

The odd thing is that if the one chooses to have the .txt file open with an application that came with Ubuntu, like OpenOffice or Firefox, then opening the file through Recent Documents does result in the correct behaviour; the file opens with OpenOffice or Firefox. This may be what led me to believe that Fedora doesn't have the bug; I only tested it with pre-installed applications in Fedora.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the .recently-used.xbel has informations on the software used to open the file, would you consider the correct behaviour to use whatever application has been used to open the example again or to use the default one? could you describe an example of broken behaviour and give details on the example used, etc?

[kanem (jkanem)]

If by 'default application' you mean the application that is used when you double-click the file in Nautilus, then yes, I would consider opening the file with that same application in Recent Documents the correct behaviour.
I don't know how I can give an example of the broken behaviour more explicitly than the example I detailed in my last comment: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/211743/comments/5

Here's an example of a bookmark from my .recently-used.xbel. The file is an avi file for which I use VLC. When opening this file in Nautilus by double-clicking on it VLC opens and plays the video. But, when accessing the file through Recent Documents it insists on opening with Totem, as does every other video file when opened through Recent Documents, even if I have never used Totem to view them.

  <bookmark href="file:///home/kanem/film/sicko.avi" added="2008-04-29T02:30:37Z" modified="2008-04-29T02:30:53Z" visited="2008-04-29T02:30:37Z">
    <title>sicko.avi</title>
    <info>
      <metadata owner="http://freedesktop.org">
        <mime:mime-type type="video/x-msvideo"/>
        <bookmark:groups>
          <bookmark:group>Totem</bookmark:group>
        </bookmark:groups>
        <bookmark:applications>
          <bookmark:application name="File Manager" exec="&apos;vlc&apos;" timestamp="1209436237" count="1"/>
          <bookmark:application name="Totem Movie Player" exec="&apos;totem %u&apos;" timestamp="1209436253" count="1"/>
        </bookmark:applications>
      </metadata>
    </info>
  </bookmark>

Below is the results of gnomevfs-info:

Name : sicko.avi
Type : Regular
MIME type : video/x-msvideo
Default app : totem.desktop
Size : 730415104
Blocks : 1428000
I/O block size : 4096
Local : YES
SUID : NO
SGID : NO
Sticky : NO
Permissions : 1600700
Link count : 1
UID : 1000
GID : 1000
Access time : Mon Apr 28 22:30:39 2008
Modification time : Tue Jun 12 17:51:12 2007
Change time : Wed Mar 26 11:45:11 2008
Device # : 2056
Inode # : 1359894
Readable : YES
Writable : YES
Executable : YES

[kanem (jkanem)]

After more testing I find that this bug exists in both the Fedora 9 Preview release and Mandriva 2008.1

I haven't been able to find a similar submission in Gnome's Bugzilla, so I think I'll report it over there.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue there is that gnomevfs doesn't understand the new gvfs associations and the recently open code has not been ported to gvfs yet

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

that's a gtk issue, there is a patch upstream on http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=528035

[kanem (jkanem)]

Thanks, you saved me from making a duplicate in bugzilla. It hadn't occurred to me to search through the gtk bugs.

[dahool (gabriel-sgt)]

I have a similar issue but with the bookmarks on Places and the file:// link.
Could it be related to this bug?

Sorry for the spam.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bookmark code is different so that's not likely the same issue

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

This bug is fixed in jaunty so I'm marking status to fix released. If someone can still reproduce this problem with latest ubuntu release, please set back status to "new". Thanks for your contribution.