Disclaimer: I don't fully understand the spec, yet. Currently, file actions are linked to .desktop files on a one-to-one basis. For example, AbiWord has a file, "abiword.desktop", which describes its Launcher behaviour, including name, generic name, comment, categories (for application organisation) and the command used to start the application. If, for example, you wanted several actions for a particular file, you would have to create separate .desktop files. You might want three actions for audio files in Rhythmbox - "Play now in Rhythmbox", "Add to Rhythmbox library", "Queue in Rhythmbox". I see no way you can do this without creating separate .desktop files. Can we alter the spec to allow for actions? Perhaps we can get rid of the "MimeType" field in the .desktop files - I can't help but feel that it perhaps doesn't belong there anyway. (You can create .desktop files on your Desktop on GNOME and MimeType would bear no relevance, there.) We could replace this functionality with .action files, for example (to compliment fooplayer.desktop): fooplayer-play-now.action: [Desktop Entry] Application=fooplayer Name=Play now in Fooplayer Name=[bla]=Bla bla bla Fooplayer Comment=Plays the file immediately without adding it to your library Exec=fooplayer --play-now %s Icon=fooplayer-play-now Terminal=false MimeType=list/of;types/here The "Application" field could correspond to a .desktop file ID (do they have a formal name?) so that if you need to, you can reference more information about the application. Perhaps this is actually unnecessary, I'm not 100% sure. We could replace the concept of "Open With..." with "Other Actions..." where all available file actions for all MIME types could be listed as candidates for the current file. I think it's important that each action can define its own list of MIME types - applications may be able to do one thing with one set of types and other things with others. To maintain backwards compatibility, one potential solution would be to consider all .desktop files with a MimeType field set to implicitly define a default action, "Open with $APPNAME". Thanks for reading!
If you want someone to read this, you need to post to xdg-list; this bugzilla component is pretty much a black hole.
Apparently, we already have a file actions implementation, it's just not supported by GNOME yet. :D
Use of freedesktop.org services, including Bugzilla, is subject to our Code of Conduct. How we collect and use information is described in our Privacy Policy.