New "Open with" in right click dialogue box does not allow custom commands

[James Pursey]

Hi

I dnn't know if this is a bug or a feature request. But it seems to me to be an oversight, and so I'm posting it as a bug.
I have found the new "Open with..." option when right clicking a program has become too watered down, to the point that it sometimes becomes useless. In 11.10 there is the new "Find applications online" option. Fair enough, this is a feature that was already incorporated in Windows XP and it might be time to have it in Ubuntu. The trouble is, though, that if the online search is unfruitful, and the application doesn't appear in the list when pressing the button " Show other applications" it is now not possible for the average person to association an executable programme with an application. For example, I have installed the Atari800 emulator. If I download a game, right click the game and look for Atari800 in the list of applications, I do not find it: and the "Find applications online" function doesn"t find any programme to run with it either. The trouble is that there is no longer a "Launch custom command" option, nor the possibility of navigating to the application with Nautilus and clicking on the application once found.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: nautilus 1:3.1.90-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-11.18-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-11-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Sep 18 09:29:06 2011
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

That's known upstream and being tracked at : https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=650284

[neural_oD (nutter78)]

Yup - this is a regression as far as I'm concerned. I really need this feature!

[Helder (he7d3r)]

I experienced the same problem trying to open a .tex file with Kile.

[Anne van Rossum (annevanrossum)]

Proposed workaround:

Adjust /usr/share/applications/defaults.list to point towards proper .desktop file for given MIME type.

E.g. application/pdf=acroread.desktop instead of application/pdf=evince.desktop

Use ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list for per-user settings.

[aleandro (aleandrodasilva)]

Hello. I had a problem to add a custom command linking to calibre to open the .epub format of the ebooks. I found many sophisticated workarounds in the web but the simplest way to solve is to install thunar. Thunar mantained the old good interface allowing to choose the wanted command.

Why was this feature removed? It was really bad to dumb down nautilus in that way. I hope developers reintroduce the possibility to choose a custom command/application.

The ubuntu forums are plenty of people asking to do that simple action that was possible with all older distributions.

[aleandro (aleandrodasilva)]

Hello. Same problem in raring. Nothing new from the front?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> Hello. Same problem in raring. Nothing new from the front?

The bug was recently discussed upstream, in reaction to a patch submitted, they don't like the idea to allow custome comments and would prefer that applications get "fixed" and include a .desktop file for the commands that are missing...

[aleandro (aleandrodasilva)]

I remember that it was possible to change mimes with Ubuntu Tweak. I wait though for a temporary workaround in raring.

Thanks.

[aleandro (aleandrodasilva)]

Hallo again.

I saw the reported patch within the comments. Could someone provide a detailled guide to install it? I would need something urgent to use all the applications that are not listed in nautilus menu (about 40% of them). My ubuntu installation is quite big with many educational and maths tools; I'd like to use them without starting every time from command line.

Furthermore I noticed that I'm not able to start bash scripts with double click cause they will be opened by gedit editor. It is a weird issue here.