MIME Types/Applications: The next generation

For years I’ve been very unhappy with the MIME type/application association.

The Ubuntu guys did a spec [0] and came up with a not-so-pretty UI, so I hacked something together. The (not yet implemented) architecture is described under [1], a very first (failed) UI experiment can be found under [2] and the first serious proposal under [3]. I really like it :).

[2] and [3] provide python scripts that should run flawlessly under Ubuntu Edgy. It turns out that script languages extremely simplifiy communication between developers and usability experts as both can run a script and there is no compilation hurdle.

Feedback appreciated, preferably on the usability list.

I still don’t have a concept how we can properly integrate URI handling with MIME type handling. Maybe it’s best to just set the HTML/email message MIME type handler when changing the URI handler (the latter is stored in GConf).

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Usability/SpecEnhancedPreferredApps

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2007-January/msg00064.html

[2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2007-January/msg00065.html

[3] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2007-January/msg00068.html