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I would like to see more options under Default Applications - namely, options that are typically harder to change in File Associations. For example, because there are many different image, audio and video formats, it would make sense to have a default image viewing program, default music/audio player and a default video player instead of finding each individual extension in File Associations.
As well as these three, it would also make sense to have a default Office suite choice. This would, for example, have KOffice and OpenOffice.org as options, then another, "Select application for each document type:" bullet that shows a small list of different document types and a button that opens the, "Select Application" dialogue. The list would include the likes of, "Word Processor", "Spreadsheets", "Presentation viewer", "Database application" etc. This would let people set e.g. Abiword as their default word processor, GNU spread (I think it's called) as the default spreadsheet manager and the rest as OpenOffice.org.

This would greatly ease the process of changing preferred applications. For example, some might prefer VLC media player or MPlayer to Dragon, but don't want the hassle of switching every single video filetype to use VLC.

maybe the ability to set a default application for the video mime types, allowing to override for specific video types ?

There could be an option "default for type"
like list (users can sort this as they like)

1. Default for viedo (VLC) <- chosen
2. Dragon player
3. VLC <- possibility to override default to VLC, in case you change default
4. Real Player
5. any other..
6. -----
7. [ Krunner input field ]
8. Edit asociations

or

1. Real Player <- chosen
2. Default for viedo (VLC)
3. Dragon player
4. VLC <- possibility to override default to VLC, in case you change default
5. any other..
6. -----
7. [ Krunner input field ]
8. Edit asociations

Yeah, the file associations dialog is one of the most painful parts of KDE, and has been for a while. I've been thinking about ways it could be changed; the obvious one is what you mention, by making it possible to set associations for sensible groupings rather than just individual file types.

Another idea is to make it application-centric: after all, most of the time we have a few applications we really like, and want to use those for every type of file they can manage. So rather than have a list of file types, you would have a user-defined short list of applications, and then the ability to assign file types to each of them. (And some way to handle file types which haven't been assigned; either warn the user in the settings dialog directly, or just offer up the choice once you actually try to open a file of that type.)

I'm not sure how programs register themselves with the Default Applications dialogue, or how extensible it is, but could it just replace the File Assocations dialogue altogether, and relegate the changing of each individual extension type to an "Advanced..." button or something?

The File Association dialogue makes no sense, because who cares what "priority" the applications are in besides what is in the top spot on the list? If I want my mp3s to be opened with Amarok, than it doesn't matter whether XMMS is second or 12th on the list, because it will never open an mp3 file.

I love the idea of having subsections like "Office Suite", and suggest that perhaps the entire dialogue be hierarchically arranged in the same categories as the KMenu sections are ("Office, Network, Multimedia, Graphics, Development, etc...") because you really only need to pick one or two "default" programs from each of those categories, and it covers pretty much everything. Hell, it's be nice if you could also change the "default" for any of those categories from inside the KMenu as well, like in a right-click menu.

Also, and I don't know how the heck this would be accomplished sanely, but I'd be nice if Wine applications (like Office 2003, Photoshop CS2, or uTorrent) could be options in their respective categories if they are installed.

The position of the application in the File Associations dialog is actually important, since it specifies the position held in the "Open With..." menu. It could possibly also be used if the application fails to start or is removed.

I need this.

bcooksley wrote:The position of the application in the File Associations dialog is actually important, since it specifies the position held in the "Open With..." menu. It could possibly also be used if the application fails to start or is removed.

Does that justify making the user spend several times as many clicks just to change their preferred association, though? I would vote no. I mean, unless there's like 50 items in there (which there won't be), who really cares about the order of the Open With menu?

clintonthegeek wrote:The File Association dialogue makes no sense, because who cares what "priority" the applications are in besides what is in the top spot on the list? If I want my mp3s to be opened with Amarok, than it doesn't matter whether XMMS is second or 12th on the list, because it will never open an mp3 file.

If you are never going to use it, why don't you just remove it from the list entirely?

*bump*

Because I almost entirely forgot I posted this idea. o.o

This option would be great !