exporting file associations for linux desktops

[Vincent Povirk]

This was something I thought we wanted for wine for a long time, but I
can't find any literature suggesting that's the case. So I'll just
explain it here.

As it is right now, we have a filetype/association system in Wine's
registry, and we have a completely separate one in most Linux
desktops. They do not talk to each other. Wine's system relies
primarily on extensions because that's what Windows does, but the
Linux system works based on MIME Types.

I would like to see this gap bridged in one direction by exporting the
information in Wine's registry in a simplified format and converting
it to something useful for Linux desktops. From what I've seen so far,
this looks surprisingly simple.

On the Linux end, MIME Types can be registered as described at
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/AddingMIMETutor (only
using ~/.local/share instead of /usr/local/share). fd.org doesn't seem
to have a standard for registering actions so that would need to be
desktop-specific, but I don't expect any major problems from that.

The Windows registry does appear to contain some MIME Types, but
they're spotty and unreliable. I'm told, though, that most desktops
can cope with things like application/x-extension-html even when
text/html exists. Generating types like that is probably the way to
go. From there, it's a simple matter to get a list of verbs that apply
to files with each extension.

To register those verbs for Linux desktops, some sort of command-line
wrapper around ShellExecute would be needed. I think this is a good
idea anyway. Does Windows have anything like that? Is it worth it for
me to try writing something like that based on winelib?

Also, what's the best way to design this if I want to see it added to
Wine? I know how I'd do it as a set of external programs, but I'd
rather avoid that.

Attached is a simple python script I wrote that prints all of the
information I think is necessary to be exported from Wine's registry.
I know python is the worst thing I could use if I want something in
Wine, but it should be good enough that I can try to import the
information on the Linux end before spending too much time on
something that may or may not ultimately be useful.

-- 
Vincent Povirk
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