Reg: File Associations - suggestion for kfm improvement

[David Faure]

On Friday 27 August 2004 09:04, satish chandra wrote:
> Problem: As we all know, kfm has a context menu that displays various
> applications associated with a given filetype (right-click -> "Open
> with"). Currently, the applications so displayed are arranged as per a
> user's preference in the KDE File Associations dialog. This can get a
> bit messy as a newly installed application might "take over" the
> handling of the filetype.

It's not supposed to do that, unless you didn't configure the order yourself
in the file associations dialog and the new app has a higher InitialPreference.
As soon as you configure the order yourself, the info is stored in the profilerc
and any new app goes at the end of that list.

> Suggested solution: I think it would make much more sense to arrange
> those handler applications according to their frequency of use.
> 
> Example: I use Adobe Acrobat to read PDFs. When i install, say, Xpdf,
> it automatically takes responsibility of opening PDF documents and so
> they no longer open with Acrobat unless i change the association
> again. If, suppose, i do restore it and after a while find Xpdf to be
> better than Acrobat, i would have to change the associations once
> again.
> 
> With the suggested solution, if once the user starts using Xpdf more
> regularly than Acrobat, the file associations would change
> automatically, almost transparent to the user. Also, the handler
> applications would be arranged according to their frequency of use in
> the "Open with" dialog.

Trying to read the user's mind is a very slippery slope IMHO. It's bound
to go wrong. Most users do NOT like a system that changes itself automatically
under their feet. I know I'd hate it.

-- 
David Faure, faure at kde.org, sponsored by Trolltech to work on KDE,
Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org), and KOffice (http://www.koffice.org).