Re: Firefox file associations
Hi, Quoted below is the original post from a thread I started back in December. I have just found if not a solution then a workaround, so I am posting it here in the hope that it will useful at least to diagnose the problem if it ever happens to anyone. On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote: Hi, Pardon my stupidity and confusion, I have what seems to be a rather simple question, but I feel lost. How can I add/modify a file/application association in Firefox? On Linux or on WinXP for that matter? I tried to read every FM I could find and the answer seems, amazingly, you can't. It seems so basic that I refuse to believe there is no solution unless/until someone here confirms the sad state of affairs. Here is the specific problem. I want to click on a link to a CSV file to open it in a spreadsheet, be it OOCalc or Gnumeric or Linux, Excel on Windows, etc. However, Firefox (3.5.5 on both platforms) apparently recognizes it as a text file and cheerfully opens it itself, as plain text, which is not what I want. The Edit-Preferences (Tools-Options on WIndows) popup has an Applications tab that lists Actions, but CSV is not listed and there isn't any way to add it. There have been numerous suggestions, all were very much appreciated, but none worked. Please don't offer any new ones without first studying the December thread carefully. I am now on FF 3.5.8 on Linux and 3.6 on Windows and the problem persists. I found what the problem was, and a workaround for me. In my case, I have control over the web server that has the files. First, the default MIME type for the web SERVER should NOT be text/plain. I run Apache on Linux, so I a) added text/csvcsv to the proper place in /etc/mime.types, b) changed DefaultType from text/plain to application/octet-stream in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, c) restarted httpd. Then, on a client with Firefox I went to the profile directory (~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default or whatever) and renamed mimeTypes.rdf. Then started Firefox, cleared the cache and the history, clicked on a link to a CSV file, and it prompted me for an application. Choose oocalc, tick the Always do it from now on box, voila... It worked for me only after I had done ALL of the above. E.g., just moving mimeTypes.rdf away (or trying to add a custom CSV stanza to it) did not work. Apparently, FF assigns a higher preference to the MIME type coming from the server than to its own or system association tables or anything else. Thus, if the server thinks it is text/plain there is no way to convince FF that it is not. Despite the fact that changing the server configuration helped resolve the issue I insist that it is a problem with Firefox - Konqueror on Linux and IE on WIndows did not have a problem with DefaultType text/plain on the server. I have not investigated what they do differently. Hope this helps someone, anyway (well, I know it did, someone from Switzerland who has the same problem and found the thread contacted me off list). -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Shlomi Fish shlo...@iglu.org.il wrote: In Firefox 3.6-beta on Mandriva Cooker I accessed: 3.6 or 3.5.6? I don't see 3.6 anywhere on FF site... Edit - Preferences - Applications - CSV Document - Action and it worked. FWIW, FF on my XP was just updated to 3.5.6, and nothing has changed. CSV is not on the list, and I still can't modify or add file associations. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.orgwrote: On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Shlomi Fish shlo...@iglu.org.il wrote: In Firefox 3.6-beta on Mandriva Cooker I accessed: 3.6 or 3.5.6? I don't see 3.6 anywhere on FF site... Edit - Preferences - Applications - CSV Document - Action and it worked. FWIW, FF on my XP was just updated to 3.5.6, and nothing has changed. CSV is not on the list, and I still can't modify or add file associations. http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Managing_content_types_-_Firefox_3 File types are added to the list after first being seen by the browser and acted upon... -- Shimi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:40 PM, shimi linux...@shimi.net wrote: http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Managing_content_types_-_Firefox_3 File types are added to the list after first being seen by the browser and acted upon... I mentioned this article in my original post. There is no plugin for csv files (or for txt file, or for shell scripts, or for C files - all of these and more are treated as text, I guess), and there is no save/open dialog for them that would allow me to set the action. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote:
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:40 PM, shimi linux...@shimi.net wrote:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Managing_content_types_-_Firefox_3
File types are added to the list after first being seen by the browser
and
acted upon...
I mentioned this article in my original post. There is no plugin for
csv files (or for txt file, or for shell scripts, or for C files - all
of these and more are treated as text, I guess), and there is no
save/open dialog for them that would allow me to set the action.
I see...
What happens if you force it? i.e. use a PHP script that has:
?php
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=whatever.csv');
?
and browse to it?
If you don't have a server with a PHP to host this on, I can create such a
URL for you...
-- Shimi
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Re: Firefox file associations
I guess that these associations come from the operating system, maybe from
Gnome/GTK as Firefox is built on top of GTK.
2009/12/17 shimi linux...@shimi.net
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.orgwrote:
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:40 PM, shimi linux...@shimi.net wrote:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Managing_content_types_-_Firefox_3
File types are added to the list after first being seen by the browser
and
acted upon...
I mentioned this article in my original post. There is no plugin for
csv files (or for txt file, or for shell scripts, or for C files - all
of these and more are treated as text, I guess), and there is no
save/open dialog for them that would allow me to set the action.
I see...
What happens if you force it? i.e. use a PHP script that has:
?php
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=whatever.csv');
?
and browse to it?
If you don't have a server with a PHP to host this on, I can create such a
URL for you...
-- Shimi
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--
Tomer Cohen
http://tomercohen.com
Sent from Ramat Gan, Israel
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Re: Firefox file associations
On Thursday 17 Dec 2009 12:11:16 Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Shlomi Fish shlo...@iglu.org.il wrote: In Firefox 3.6-beta on Mandriva Cooker I accessed: 3.6 or 3.5.6? I don't see 3.6 anywhere on FF site... It's 3.6-beta , not 3.5.6 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-1.9.2/ It ships as part of Mandriva Linux Cooker. Edit - Preferences - Applications - CSV Document - Action and it worked. FWIW, FF on my XP was just updated to 3.5.6, and nothing has changed. CSV is not on the list, and I still can't modify or add file associations. OK. Maybe try fudging with the user.js file or do as Tomer (who is the local Mozilla contact) says. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Star Trek: We, the Living Dead - http://shlom.in/st-wtld Bzr is slower than Subversion in combination with Sourceforge. ( By: http://dazjorz.com/ ) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Tomer Cohen to...@gmx.net wrote: I guess that these associations come from the operating system, maybe from Gnome/GTK as Firefox is built on top of GTK. Not on Windows ;-). My Linux desktop is KDE, not Gnome, are you saying FF may honor Gnome settings and ignore KDE's anyway? If so, it's a pretty serious bug. As I mentioned, Konqueror (on Linux) and IE (on Windows) do the right thing. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
OK. Maybe try fudging with the user.js file or do as Tomer (who is the local Mozilla contact) says. Well, I am looking for a solution that a normal user can use without hacking javascript or PHP (cf. shimi's message). I need to post (automatically, programmatically) files of different types - including txt and csv - and make them accessible through a web server. I want a normal Windows or Linux user with a mainstream browser to be able to open the files in an expected way - for csv it is spreadsheet, for txt it is a text editor of choice, etc. Take a Windows user. As things stand now, she will be fine as long as she uses IE. If she decides on Firefox, it won't work as intended and there is no configuration that can make it work. Does this sound right? In my specific situation I may circumvent the problem by making the files available through a samba/CIFS server. This is a workaround, not a solution. It also requires Linux users to do more work - either mount the share or use a samba browser or use Konqueror rather than Firefox... I am quite surprised that this is not trivially configurable in FF. If this forum does not offer an obvious solution 24h after OP then maybe I need to file a bug with Mozilla... I'll consider it. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Firefox file associations
Hi, Pardon my stupidity and confusion, I have what seems to be a rather simple question, but I feel lost. How can I add/modify a file/application association in Firefox? On Linux or on WinXP for that matter? I tried to read every FM I could find and the answer seems, amazingly, you can't. It seems so basic that I refuse to believe there is no solution unless/until someone here confirms the sad state of affairs. Here is the specific problem. I want to click on a link to a CSV file to open it in a spreadsheet, be it OOCalc or Gnumeric or Linux, Excel on Windows, etc. However, Firefox (3.5.5 on both platforms) apparently recognizes it as a text file and cheerfully opens it itself, as plain text, which is not what I want. The Edit-Preferences (Tools-Options on WIndows) popup has an Applications tab that lists Actions, but CSV is not listed and there isn't any way to add it. The docs say that the only way to add a new file type to the list is the first time you click on a link to this type of file, where it offers you to download or open with. In this case I doubt even that was ever available since apparently it is just a text file to Firefox. I found a knowledge base article saying the only way to modify file associations is to install a SeaMonkey add-on. I went to look at the add-on - it seems totally obsolete, is supposed to work with FF 2.0 and is known to be buggy with 3.1. I will think a dozen times before installing it. Firefox does not seem to look at system customizations in this case either. I *know* my KDE associates CSV files with OOCalc and Windows - with Excel (the latter is the default, I think). Konqueror and IE do the right thing. FWIW, my browser of choice is Konqueror which is mostly sane. However, I am testing something and I can't afford to omit Firefox from the list of target browsers. What am I missing? Has Firefox been dumbed down to this extent? Thanks in advance, -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
On Wednesday 16 Dec 2009 17:28:20 Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Hi, Pardon my stupidity and confusion, I have what seems to be a rather simple question, but I feel lost. How can I add/modify a file/application association in Firefox? On Linux or on WinXP for that matter? I tried to read every FM I could find and the answer seems, amazingly, you can't. It seems so basic that I refuse to believe there is no solution unless/until someone here confirms the sad state of affairs. In Firefox 3.6-beta on Mandriva Cooker I accessed: Edit - Preferences - Applications - CSV Document - Action and it worked. Here is the specific problem. I want to click on a link to a CSV file to open it in a spreadsheet, be it OOCalc or Gnumeric or Linux, Excel on Windows, etc. However, Firefox (3.5.5 on both platforms) apparently recognizes it as a text file and cheerfully opens it itself, as plain text, which is not what I want. The Edit-Preferences (Tools-Options on WIndows) popup has an Applications tab that lists Actions, but CSV is not listed and there isn't any way to add it. The docs say that the only way to add a new file type to the list is the first time you click on a link to this type of file, where it offers you to download or open with. In this case I doubt even that was ever available since apparently it is just a text file to Firefox. I found a knowledge base article saying the only way to modify file associations is to install a SeaMonkey add-on. I went to look at the add-on - it seems totally obsolete, is supposed to work with FF 2.0 and is known to be buggy with 3.1. I will think a dozen times before installing it. Firefox does not seem to look at system customizations in this case either. I *know* my KDE associates CSV files with OOCalc and Windows - with Excel (the latter is the default, I think). Konqueror and IE do the right thing. FWIW, my browser of choice is Konqueror which is mostly sane. However, I am testing something and I can't afford to omit Firefox from the list of target browsers. What am I missing? Has Firefox been dumbed down to this extent? Thanks in advance, Regards, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Parody on The Fountainhead - http://shlom.in/towtf Bzr is slower than Subversion in combination with Sourceforge. ( By: http://dazjorz.com/ ) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Firefox file associations
Shlomi Fish shlo...@iglu.org.il writes: In Firefox 3.6-beta on Mandriva Cooker I accessed: Edit - Preferences - Applications - CSV Document - Action and it worked. Can you also add a new file type? -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
