95504 - Sane default values for mime.types and mailcap locations

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

At the moment we do not have mime.types or mailcap locations listed in prefs. 
Now that bug 52441 has been fixed, we should.

For the global locations, I would say we should just look in /etc.  There seems
to be no good way to tell where these files are if they are not in /etc. 
distributors will of course want to tailor to their own platforms/distributions.

For the local locations, we should use ~/.mailcap and ~/.mime.types.  So this
depends on bug 76968

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

adding dependencies

Comment 2

[Aleksey Nogin]

Sorry for the spam - had to mess with dependencies to work around bug 95594.

Comment 3

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

Aleksey, how did you fiddle with the dependencies to commit changes here? i
cannot even add a comment [i'm not changing any deps, either]...

so, for the time being to keep myself sane and be able say what i wish to say,
i'm removing the deps:

previous: "bug 95504 depends on bug 52441, bug 76968"
previous: "bug 95504 blocks bug 51246"

what i'd like to add:

bug 54940 [blocker or dependent on this one?]: must define list of default MIME
type associations for Helper Apps Preferences --seems relevant here. :)

bug 78106 [dependent on this bug]: tracking bug for helper app/MIME issues.

Comment 4

[Aleksey Nogin]

As documented in bug 95594, something extremely weird is going on with
dependency checking. One can add these 3 dependencies without Bugzilla
complaining, but once they are added, Bugzilla refuses to allow any changes...

Comment 5

[Aleksey Nogin]

Hopefully this time dependencies would work correctly...

Comment 6

[Aleksey Nogin]

Looks like I finally got the dependencies to go in some reasonable direction...

Comment 7

[Steve Koppelman]

Just because there's no single 100% platform-independent way to do something,
IMHO it shouldn't mean no effort should be made to address a usability problem
like this.

On many Unix flavors and Linux there's the "locate" command (whether the
original GNU locate or a symlink to the newer slocate), which produces a list of
instances of a given filename. If successful, make a determination based on the
results. If a mime.types is present in the current user's home directory, use
that, and fall back on (for instance) an /etc/mime.types if one is present. 

If the command fails or nothing that looks right is present (screening out
things like any obvious server-oriented mime.types or examples in /*/doc), move
on silently.

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 94705 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Jeremy Sanders]

I notice in 0.9.4, the preferences specify the mailcap file is in:

pref("helpers.global_mime_types_file", "/usr/local/lib/netscape/mime.types");
pref("helpers.global_mailcap_file", "/usr/local/lib/netscape/mailcap");
pref("helpers.private_mime_types_file", "~/.mime.types");
pref("helpers.private_mailcap_file", "~/.mailcap");

Surely this assumes that netscape (the original!) is already installed!

Comment 10

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Jeremy, I just noticed that yesterday too.  :) Those preferences got copied from
the NS4.x preferences way back in the day and never changed.  Since we already
have the user prefs in there, I'm attaching a patch to set the global prefs to a
non-netscape location.

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: patch

Comment 12

[Aleksey Nogin]

> I just noticed that yesterday

Boris, you are forgetting - this was already discussed in bug 51246 "update
pref/unix.js" and you participated in that discussion. Or was it a different
Boris Zbarsky? ;-)

Comment 13

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

No, that's me.  I just have a bad memory.  :)

Comment 14

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

Comment on attachment 50072 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

r=bbaetz, since bz assures me that the VMS change is right

Comment 15

[Darin Fisher]

rs=darin

Comment 16

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

checked in

Comment 17

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

In 0.9.5 helper applications still don't seem to be picking up anything in the
mime type files as defined in defaults/pref/unix.js or prefs.js

I've done a fresh install and wiped the ~/.mozilla directory. Still only knows
about text/html.

Is there some other bug I should be following?

I thought this combined with bug 52441 should fix everything.

Comment 18

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

My bad. It seems to fire up the correct application, it just doesn't show
anything in the helper app dialog box making it easier for the user to change
the settings. Is this an already reported bug somewhere?

Comment 19

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

vrfy fixed using 2001.11.01.12-comm bits on linux rh6.2. what i did:

* my machine is set to launch [predefined/os-defined] Real Player when i click a
.ram file.
* in netscape6.x, i clicked on a .ram file link.
* result: Real Player launched. :)

side note: the bug where mimetype info should be displayed in the helper app
panel [bug 54940] is still an issue. [since the .ram/realplay info isn't shown
there --i had to check the Mime Types listing in the Control Center.]