In Linux Mint 17.3 KDE I have an option to right click on a .txt file in Dolphin and then open with Kate or the (the hessling editor). It does not work in Linux Mint 18, 18.1, 18.2 or 18.3. The right click open with Kate works, but with the "the" option the Hessling Editor icon bounces on the screen a bit then quits. I can run either Kate or "the" from the terminal panel in Dolphin just fine in 18.3. "the" is installed in /usr/bin/. I have placed the the_1.desktop in ~/.local/share/kservices5/ServiceMenus/ . This is one of the show stoppers that has kept me from moving my production version to LM 18.

I use The Hessling Editor as it grew from IBM's Xedit program on VM/CMS, probably the largest program on CMS. I learned it years ago. Command driven it is more robust and powerful than Kate albeit much more difficult to learn.

As I went thru each new release of Linux Mint 18 KDE I was hoping the Plasma team would find the lack of compatibility and fix it. Can anyone help or make a suggestion of something to try to get the option to work? I did search the forum before posting and did not find anything helpful.

"I'm just a buffalo singing the dinosaur blues." http://www.metrolyrics.com/singin-the-d ... alker.html

This is likely a packaging issue, not a DE one. In Mint 17.x , which uses Ubuntu 14.04 packaging, THE is actually a direct package import from Debian. Mint 18.x is Ubuntu 16.04, but THE there is a native package now. It is likely that the command string options specified in the file association are incorrect, especially as this is a terminal application, and THE code is from 2013.

I am away from a Linux machine at the moment, but one should be able to, if i remember correctly, edit the file association in System Settings to specify opening the program in a terminal.

claydoh wrote:This is likely a packaging issue, not a DE one. In Mint 17.x , which uses Ubuntu 14.04 packaging, THE is actually a direct package import from Debian. Mint 18.x is Ubuntu 16.04, but THE there is a native package now. It is likely that the command string options specified in the file association are incorrect, especially as this is a terminal application, and THE code is from 2013.

I am away from a Linux machine at the moment, but one should be able to, if i remember correctly, edit the file association in System Settings to specify opening the program in a terminal.

claydoh,
Thanks for your response. When I check the file associations for .txt files in Mint 17.3 and Mint 18.3 they are identical. Under the Application Tab the command issued is:
/usr/bin/the -w 5000, where -w 5000 indicates to allow for a file width of up to 5000. The advanced options checked are Run in Terminal and Enable launch feedback. The preview tab is gone in 18.3.
As I mentioned in my original post, "the" works from Konsole and from a terminal panel in Dolphin in 17.3 and 18.3. The only problem I have is it does not work with right mouse click> open with "the" in 18.3. The "the" icon bounces for 10 seconds then disappears. Is there a way to check the log of Dolphin activities or to get a trace of what happens when the right mouse click open with "the" is performed? I am stumped.

the-1.desktop is stored in ~/.local/share/applications and looks like this on both releases:
[Desktop Entry]
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=
Exec=/usr/bin/the -w 5000
GenericName[en_US]=The Hessling Editor
GenericName=The Hessling Editor
Icon=/home/rob/Dropbox/shared_rcss_complex/the64.png
MimeType=text/plain;
Name[en_US]=the
Name=the
NoDisplay=true
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=true
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=