At the moment we do not have mime.types or mailcap locations listed in prefs. Now that bug 52441 has been fixed, we should. For the global locations, I would say we should just look in /etc. There seems to be no good way to tell where these files are if they are not in /etc. distributors will of course want to tailor to their own platforms/distributions. For the local locations, we should use ~/.mailcap and ~/.mime.types. So this depends on bug 76968

adding dependencies

Sorry for the spam - had to mess with dependencies to work around bug 95594.

Aleksey, how did you fiddle with the dependencies to commit changes here? i cannot even add a comment [i'm not changing any deps, either]... so, for the time being to keep myself sane and be able say what i wish to say, i'm removing the deps: previous: "bug 95504 depends on bug 52441, bug 76968" previous: "bug 95504 blocks bug 51246" what i'd like to add: bug 54940 [blocker or dependent on this one?]: must define list of default MIME type associations for Helper Apps Preferences --seems relevant here. :) bug 78106 [dependent on this bug]: tracking bug for helper app/MIME issues.

As documented in bug 95594, something extremely weird is going on with dependency checking. One can add these 3 dependencies without Bugzilla complaining, but once they are added, Bugzilla refuses to allow any changes...

Hopefully this time dependencies would work correctly...

Looks like I finally got the dependencies to go in some reasonable direction...

Just because there's no single 100% platform-independent way to do something, IMHO it shouldn't mean no effort should be made to address a usability problem like this. On many Unix flavors and Linux there's the "locate" command (whether the original GNU locate or a symlink to the newer slocate), which produces a list of instances of a given filename. If successful, make a determination based on the results. If a mime.types is present in the current user's home directory, use that, and fall back on (for instance) an /etc/mime.types if one is present. If the command fails or nothing that looks right is present (screening out things like any obvious server-oriented mime.types or examples in /*/doc), move on silently.

*** Bug 94705 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I notice in 0.9.4, the preferences specify the mailcap file is in: pref("helpers.global_mime_types_file", "/usr/local/lib/netscape/mime.types"); pref("helpers.global_mailcap_file", "/usr/local/lib/netscape/mailcap"); pref("helpers.private_mime_types_file", "~/.mime.types"); pref("helpers.private_mailcap_file", "~/.mailcap"); Surely this assumes that netscape (the original!) is already installed!

Jeremy, I just noticed that yesterday too. :) Those preferences got copied from the NS4.x preferences way back in the day and never changed. Since we already have the user prefs in there, I'm attaching a patch to set the global prefs to a non-netscape location.

> I just noticed that yesterday Boris, you are forgetting - this was already discussed in bug 51246 "update pref/unix.js" and you participated in that discussion. Or was it a different Boris Zbarsky? ;-)

No, that's me. I just have a bad memory. :)

Comment on attachment 50072 [details] [diff] [review] patch r=bbaetz, since bz assures me that the VMS change is right

rs=darin

checked in

In 0.9.5 helper applications still don't seem to be picking up anything in the mime type files as defined in defaults/pref/unix.js or prefs.js I've done a fresh install and wiped the ~/.mozilla directory. Still only knows about text/html. Is there some other bug I should be following? I thought this combined with bug 52441 should fix everything.

My bad. It seems to fire up the correct application, it just doesn't show anything in the helper app dialog box making it easier for the user to change the settings. Is this an already reported bug somewhere?

vrfy fixed using 2001.11.01.12-comm bits on linux rh6.2. what i did: * my machine is set to launch [predefined/os-defined] Real Player when i click a .ram file. * in netscape6.x, i clicked on a .ram file link. * result: Real Player launched. :) side note: the bug where mimetype info should be displayed in the helper app panel [bug 54940] is still an issue. [since the .ram/realplay info isn't shown there --i had to check the Mime Types listing in the Control Center.]