[SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

Voxol · 2017-02-14 10:07:37

This happened some time ago and since it was only a minor inconvenience I didn't care to try and fix it until recently, so I don't remember "exactly" what I did.

I think it was because I just upgraded plasma, but at a certain point I was opening an application on the desktop and I was prompted with the choice to either run the application or to open it as a text file.
I checked "remember my choice", but made the wrong one by accident and now everytime I click on a desktop icon of an application it opens with Kate.
(I should note that if I right click and choose "open" from the drop menu it runs the application as it should)

Now, before coming here for help I tried to do my homework and solve it myself.

I understood that i only modified the setting for the .desktop files, so I tried going to the file associations settings, found the x-desktop file type (which is associated to .desktop and .kdelnk) and confronted with another machine I have running Arch.
I found the two to be pretty much identical, listing a few text editors on the "Application Preference Order" in the General tab, and "Embedded Advanced Text Editor (katepart)" and "Okular (okulartxt)" on the "Service Preference Order" in the Embedding tab.

So I thought to try and remove all the elements from both lists thinking I would get again a prompt asking me how I wanted to open this kind of files (I'm linking to the screenshot to avoid making this post too heavy)
Screenshot 1

And it somewhat worked as now when I try to run something i get this window
Screenshot 2

But now I don't know what to associate this file to, so this is where I came to an alt and resorted to asking for help here.

PS: I don't know if this is a newbie question but it sure felt like one to me, so sorry if I chose the wrong section ^.^;

EDIT: Ok, I just remembered exactly what i did to make plasma ask me what I wanted to do with the file: I changed the desktop layout from "Desktop" to "Folder view" and when opening something I was asked if the default action was be to open the file or run it

EDIT2: I realised this thread would be better in Application & Desktop Envirorment, so I reposted it there, don't answer to this one.

Last edited by Voxol (2017-02-16 09:45:16)

ewaller · 2017-02-14 16:18:54

Voxol wrote:

PS: I don't know if this is a newbie question but it sure felt like one to me, so sorry if I chose the wrong section ^.^;
EDIT: Ok, I just remembered exactly what i did to make plasma ask me what I wanted to do with the file: I changed the desktop layout from "Desktop" to "Folder view" and when opening something I was asked if the default action was be to open the file or run it
EDIT2: I realised this thread would be better in Application & Desktop Envirorment, so I reposted it there, don't answer to this one.

My colleague dust binned your other thread as a cross post. In the future, if you would like a moderator to move a thread for you, please use the 'report' link on the thread and drop us a note. One of us are usually around so the response is generally quick. Moving this thread to Application and Desktop Environments.

You will want to be looking into the xdg-mime command, in particular, the default sub command.

Voxol · 2017-02-14 19:19:24

ewaller wrote:

My colleague dust binned your other thread as a cross post. In the future, if you would like a moderator to move a thread for you, please use the 'report' link on the thread and drop us a note. One of us are usually around so the response is generally quick. Moving this thread to Application and Desktop Environments.
You will want to be looking into the xdg-mime command, in particular, the default sub command.

Sorry about the double post, it won't happen again.

Anyway as I'm not familiar with the xdg-mime command, I'm trying to follow this page and from what I can get this is basically the command line version of the graphical tool I used earlier, in fact when I looked at the ~/.config/mimeapps.list file I found the changes I did via GUI.

I tried to run this

xdg-mime default .desktop application

but it did nothing

Then I run

xdg-mime query default application/x-desktop

and it gave me

org.kde.kate.desktop

I don't really know what that means, but it's the same when I run the command in my other machine, so it should be right?

Point is, if I got this correctly (and I don't think so, since both the wiki and the man page aren't the clearest), these tool let me choose which application to use in order to open which type of file, but I don't want to use an application to open these files, or if I do, I don't know which application I want them to be opened with.

In fact it seems the mime settings for these applications are the same on my other pc, where everything runs as it should, so it makes me think the problem lies elsewhere.

Lone_Wolf · 2017-02-15 12:56:42

The change you confirmed seems to be exclusive for KDE .

On the embedded tab, you should have several settings above the Service Preference Order .

Compare those between the 2 systems.

Voxol · 2017-02-16 08:14:27

They are the same, as they both are set to "Use the settings for the 'application' group", which are (for both systems) "Show file in separate viewer"
application/xdesktop settings
appication settings

Xyne · 2017-02-16 08:43:25

You can just remove the lines from ~/.config/mimeapps.list via an editor. Close your preference manager(s) first to make sure that they don't overwrite your changes on exit.

<shameless plug>You could also use mimeo --clear application/x-desktop </shameless plug>.

Of course, KDE may have its own separate configuration file that supplements or overrride mimeapps.list (I don't know).

Voxol · 2017-02-16 09:34:27

Xyne wrote:

You can just remove the lines from ~/.config/mimeapps.list via an editor. Close your preference manager(s) first to make sure that they don't overwrite your changes on exit.

Already did that, even if they were the changes I did want and remembered, anyway, it didn't do anything.

I even deleted the file altogether, but nothing; I don't think that file is part of the problem.

EDIT: Just to clarify, in that files there were some other changes I did via gui, none that explains the behaviour I'm having.

Last edited by Voxol (2017-02-16 09:41:16)

V1del · 2017-02-16 09:40:12

This isn't a mimeapps adjustment, it's a dolphin setting. See here for a plethora of ways to revert: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=224&t=129445

Voxol · 2017-02-16 09:44:58

V1del wrote:

This isn't a mimeapps adjustment, it's a dolphin setting. See here for a plethora of ways to revert: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=224&t=129445

This was it, thank you!

Just to have it here if anyone else is having the same problem, the file with this setting was

~/.config/kiorc

Just deleted the line and I was prompted again with the choice.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-02-14 10:07:37

[SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#2 2017-02-14 16:18:54

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#3 2017-02-14 19:19:24

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#4 2017-02-15 12:56:42

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#5 2017-02-16 08:14:27

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#6 2017-02-16 08:43:25

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#7 2017-02-16 09:34:27

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#8 2017-02-16 09:40:12

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

#9 2017-02-16 09:44:58

Re: [SOLVED] Mistakenly assigned .desktop files to be opened as text files

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