How to properly and easily configure `xdg-open` without any environment?

Question

I'm using OpenBox window manager without any desktop environment.

xdg-open behaves strangely. It opens everything with firefox.

$ xdg-settings --list
Known properties:
  default-web-browser           Default web browser

I'm looking for a simple program; something like reading every *.desktop file in /usr/share/applications/ folder and automatically setting xdg settings.

Solution 1

You can install and use perl-file-mimeinfo in the extra repository to manage mimetypes.

Example to open all .pdf files in apvlv:

/usr/bin/vendor_perl/mimeopen -d $file.pdf

or on other Linux distributions where mimeopen is NOT in /usr/bin/vendor_perl/ but is in one of the $PATH directories :

mimeopen -d $file.pdf

and then, at the prompt, enter the application: apvlv.

Solution 2

Why not to use utilities from xdg itself?

To make Thunar the default file-browser, i.e. the default application for opening folders.

$ xdg-mime default Thunar.desktop inode/directory

to use xpdf as the default PDF viewer:

$ xdg-mime default xpdf.desktop application/pdf

This should create an entry

[Default Applications]
application/pdf=xpdf.desktop

in your local MIME database ~/.config/mimeapps.list.

Your PDF files should be opened with xpdf now.

Solution 3

You could use something like this to generate the appropriate xdg-mime commands for each of your .desktop files and the mimetypes they contain, then execute the ones you like. Note /usr/share/applications might have subdirectories.

find /usr/share/applications ~/.local/share/applications -iname '*.desktop' -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' d; do
  for m in $(grep MimeType "$d" | cut -d= -f2 | tr ";" " "); do
    echo xdg-mime default "'$d'" "'$m'"
  done
done

Solution 4

On Debian you could use the command, as root

update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

having the shared-mime-info package installed.

Solution 5

For those like me that did not know how to get the proper mimetype to use with xdg-mime:

1- Initial situation:

$ xdg-open . opens vscodium (who hardcoded this stupid file association?) :[

2- Problem: what is the mime type of "."?

$ mimetype . .: inode/directory

3- Solution:

$ xdg-mime default thunar.desktop inode/directory

NOTE: Following line doesnot work but no error is reported :{ $ xdg-mime default Thunar.desktop inode/directory

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Comments

[michael]

using xdg-mime (part of xdg-utils) is the best answer for working with (querying, configuring) xdg-open. See also unix.stackexchange.com/questions/8793/…

[IanS]

In case someone else has this issue with xdg-open opening everything in Firefox, simply deleting ~/.config/mimeapps.list and restarting fxed it for me (in Ubuntu 20.04).

[intractve]

I've tried it. It doesn't work. I'm running Arch.

[intractve]

It work's. But it only opens file. So my xdg-open left unconfigured and applications using xdg-open won't open files right.

[jasonwryan]

I don't quite follow your comment. What is not working? The -d switch sets the default. So if you use it to open fileA.pdf - you should then be able to open fileB.pdf with your preferred application.

[intractve]

Yes. mimeopen -d a.pdf sets default for *.pdf, but it sets default for itself - mimeopen b.pdf works. But xdg-open configuration left unchanged and it still opens everything with firefox :/

[jasonwryan]

Once I have set the default with mimeopen, xdg-open behaves as expected--in the case of .pdfs, it opens them with apvlv.

[intractve]

Yep, thanks. It's now working. I don't know why it didn't work before. I did same.

[michael]

+1 and see also my related answer to the related question, unix.stackexchange.com/questions/77136/…

[mVChr]

Most useful answer, thanks. Easiest to know about defaults.list so it can simply be edited by hand if need be.

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

For some reason xdg-mime did not modify defaults.list, but editing it manually (thanks to hints in this answer) did the trick.

[lzap]

FYI few Perl dependencies are required for this, make sure you have them installed. RPM/DEB distributions will install these for you normally.

[Nickolai Leschov]

This doesn't work for me in Lubuntu 16.04. sudo xdg-mime default pluma.desktop text/plain gives touch: cannot touch "/home/user/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list": No such file or directory /usr/bin/xdg-mime: 807: /usr/bin/xdg-mime: cannot create /home/user/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list.new: Directory nonexistent; /usr/bin/vendor_perl/mimeopen -d $file.txt gives bash: /usr/bin/vendor_perl/mimeopen: No such file or directory.

[Mateen Ulhaq]

It seems defaults.list is now called mimeapps.list. See the Arch Wiki for a list of valid locations for mimeapps.list.

[Scz]

To query the current default, use xdg-mime query default application/pdf

[Scz]

See user60561's answer if any .desktop file name contains spaces.

[aleb]

@Scz I copy/pasted the enhancement, I assume it works since it has been voted by 5 people. Thanks for pointing it.

[daGo]

to figure out mimetype of a certain file run xdg-mime query filetype pathTofileYourInterestedIn

[Greg Bell]

Your result indicates that the xdg-mime default command isn't succeeding, or something is overwriting the mime database - maybe a nightly cron job? Editing distribution files in /usr/share/applications may solve the problem short term, but is a hack.

[Flux]

I found my local MIME database in ~/.config/mimeapps.list.

[Atralb]

@izap, you got the path to the MIME database wrong, it is ~/.config/mimeapps.list.