ADE XL: how to set default application for opening documents?

Hi Jorge,

 ADE-XL uses the desktop settings to open the files. So whatever application is associated with the .csv files in the KDE/GNOME environment then this will be used by ADE-XL.

For example, In my KDE environment I tried the below steps and then I managed to open the .csv file in LibreOffice Calc once I double-clicked on it in Documents in ADE-XL.

1. In the file manager I selected one of my saved .csv files and do RMB->Open With ->Other….
2. Then selected the LibreOffice Calc for the ‘Open With’ field and enable the "Remember application association for this type of file” option.
3. I made sure that LibreOffice Calc is at the top of the applications list when I do RMB on the .csv file->Open With (this can be controlled in the Application Preference Order by doing RMB->Properties and then pressing the ‘Edit File type’ icon in General tab).

Hope the above info helps you.

Regards,

Dimitra

Hello Dimitra, thanks for your reply. I tried following a similar procedure (I use GNOME), but despite LibreOffice being the default for .csv files, ADE-XL still calls "gedit" (I tried quiting and launching again Virtuoso, but it was still the same). Moreover, when I open the file in ADE-XL, I can see the following line being printed to the terminal from which I launched Virtuoso:

> START /bin/gedit "path_to_the_csv_file"

So it seems somewhere "gedit" is being defined as the app for opening this files in ADE-XL. Anyideas?

Thanks and regards, Jorge.

Hello Dimitra, thanks for your reply. I tried following a similar procedure (I use GNOME), but despite LibreOffice being the default for .csv files, ADE-XL still calls "gedit" (I tried quiting and launching again Virtuoso, but it was still the same). Moreover, when I open the file in ADE-XL, I can see the following line being printed to the terminal from which I launched Virtuoso:

> START /bin/gedit "path_to_the_csv_file"

So it seems somewhere "gedit" is being defined as the app for opening this files in ADE-XL. Anyideas?

Thanks and regards, Jorge.

Hi Jorge,

I normally use KDE (like Dimitra), but I just switched into Gnome and did a bit of experimentation. I'm not sure if there's a GUI way of doing things, but a google search didn't seem to show it as that obvious (another reason why I'm not a big fan of Gnome). Anyway, I suggest you look at the file:

~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

For me, the default was to open in LibreOffice - so there was a line in this file which looked like this:

text/csv=libreoffice-calc.desktop;gedit.desktop;emacs.desktop;fedora-gvim.desktop;libreoffice-writer.desktop;kde4-kwrite.desktop;kde4-kate.desktop;

If I changed it to:

text/csv=gedit.desktop;libreoffice-calc.desktop;emacs.desktop;fedora-gvim.desktop;libreoffice-writer.desktop;kde4-kwrite.desktop;kde4-kate.desktop;

Then file associations in both the file browser in Gnome and also in ADE XL are such that gedit is used for CSV. If I change it back to the first line (I don't have to quit Virtuoso), then LibreOffice calc is used.

So I think that's what you have to do.

Regards,

Andrew.

One extra note as Dimitra and I were discussing this. In Gnome (at least the version I was using on RHEL6.5 - I didn't check the version number) allows you to use the file browser and then over the file use Right Mouse->Properties, and then on the Open With tab, you can set the application to open with and it remembers it (it writes to the mimeapps.list file above). On older Gnome (RHEL5.something) it wrote to defaults.list in the same directory - so that mechanism has changed.

However, Dimitra was seeing some inconsistency - some documents folders in ADE (on a different file system) still opened with Firefox for her. We couldn't see why.

Anyway, I can say that ADE doesn't have its own mechanism for associating file types - it's entirely done through the OS. My guess is that something is not identifying the file type correctly in some situations - we don't know why though.

Regards,

Andrew.

Thanks for the info, Andrew. Due to the nature of the PDK we use we have to work in a "secure vault" environment with many OS limitations and restrictions (for instance, we can't use another desktop but gnome). That being said, the behavior of my OS seems to be in agreement with what you describe, and my file browser follows (and updates) the settings in mimeapps.list: changing the OS association for .csv to libreoffice, to sublime, to kwrite, always worked, but still ADE-XL opens my csv's with gedit (and I still see the "> START /bin/gedit "path_to_the_csv_file"" message being printed in the terminal while doing so). As it's not a big deal, I'll just leave it like it is for the time being. Thanks anyway so much for your help!

Regards, Jorge.