Kubuntu's system settings app doesn't handle file associations

KDE's file associations are handled unfortunately just like Microsoft Windows, via the File Manager. In Windows you would use Explorer settings to manage your associations. The same goes for Kubuntu/KDE, you use Konqueror. Once in Konqueror you do:

Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> File Associations

I don't get it.

Every KDE-packing distro installs KDE Control Center, which handles a lot of things well including file association. That option is there and it is so well written that anyone can easily use it. Nonetheless, it seem that kubuntu wishes to go the other way and use an app of it's own named System Settings, which offers a lot less options than KDE control center including the file association dialog.

So, when a bug report is sent pointing out the absence of such a vital configuration option from the app which aims to be the tool to configure KDE, what do we get? A rejection. Are you serious?

How things are done in windows is completely irrelevant. This is easily done with KDE from the "KDE control center" app at least since 2001. This is something which every KDE-wielding distribution since back then. This is something that is only missing fom Kubuntu due to Kubuntu's own decision of replacing KDE's config app with the "System settings" app, which doesn't handle it.

This is exactly what this bug report is trying to point out. A vital feature is missing from the "System settings" applicatin. That feature is file association configuration. That feature is present in every KDE release from the "KDE control center" application, which is also available to kubuntu but not automatically installed.

So why was this bug report rejected?

+1 on the I don't get it. It's slightly counterintuitive to have to open the browser (I know, also the file manager) to deal with file associations that are respected outside that umbrella. Call it a wishlist, but I think it's a legitimate complaint. Please don't reject it on these grounds. Setting as confirmed.

Now that you mention it, it is indeed more of a wishlist than a bug. Yet, this is such a basic and vital feature that it's absence is a big blow to a desktop environmnet's usability.

Yet, I'm still appalled from the rejection. Who in the heck believes that the ability to tweak the file association definitions is irrelevant to the point of rejecting a report asking for it?

Bugs can be rejected for many reasons. Not just because what you said isn't factually correct. For instance some reported bugs are just the way Kubuntu (or KDE) have decided to do things, much like other distros may have chosen to do things differently; "won't fix" ie. this is a feature decision rather than a bug; not enough details etc.

I think your bug report was initially rejected on the grounds that in KDE you normally set file associations within konqueror. Which is a design decision. In Kubuntu you can still run kcontrol if you want to access the file associations that way, however System Settings is the configuration tool in Kubuntu. System Settings I think is much easier for people to use and features will continue to be added to it.

Since Edgy has nice General/Advanced split, we may want to reconsider adding some kcontrol modules to Advanced section.

This problem is still unresolved in Kubuntu 7.04

Yep, and this problem is still unresolved in Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) tribe 3.

I like the idea of the kde-systemsettings, however please provide the same functionality as kcontrol does!

I also agree that as Gutsy is coming around and that has Dolphin as the default file browser then using Konqueror to change this setting would be extremely counter intuitive and more so KDE 4.0 is having this incomplete piece of software ported to it (and then as Dolphin would be the default file manager and Konqueror as the default web browser would these essential changes even be possible?) This is definitely a Kubuntu bad decision like crippling functions away from Konqueror (split pain anyone?).

I totally agree with David Taylor's remark!
I have just installed Gutsy rc and have been looking for more than an hour for the file associations panel before stumbling upon this thread which finally pointed the answer:
- it's in the config of an overkill app that i don't use at all since Dolphin is the new default for a file explorer (which lacks the panel!) and Firefox is my browser of choice.
Duh!

Here is my try on the issue.
I put the [File Associations] kcm panel under the [Personal]>[Default Application] which I changed into a menu containing both [Default Applications] panel and [File Associations] panel.
I found it quite an intuitive location as this was the first place I checked when looking for the file associations panel.

The patch is for /etc/xdg/menus/system-settings.menu.

Desktop entries /usr/share/desktop-directories/kde-settings-defaultapplications.directory and /usr/share/applications/kde/filetypes.desktop are already provided by Kubuntu so no need to translate anything.

I did not try this workaround. But, I think the layout of kubuntu's "system-settings" is good. But it must definitely have an option to change file associations in it, especially as dolphin has become the default file manager.

Another option would be add the option in dolphin itself, just as konqueror had it. I have put up a feature request at http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151094

I requested interested users and developers to give your feedback there so that KDE team looks into it and fixes it upstream.

Chandru:

KDE isn't responsible for this problem. Any default KDE install handles this exactly how it should be dealt: a dedicated section in the KDE control center.

The problem only exists in Kubuntu and it is due to Kubuntu's willingness to break a good thing without giving any reasoning or alternative whatsoever. So what that option is available through Konqueror? How exactly is file assotiation a web browser or even file manager responsibility? It isn't. It's the responsibility of the desktop environment. So why exactly would anyone remove such a fundamental feature from a desktop environment? It's unthinkable.

I agree with that point, KDE's default control centre is amazing enough for anyone. But a menu option in the file manager, which would in turn load the corresponding control centre module shouldn't hurt.

This feature can and should be a part of a file manager also, because it is the one responsible for managing files and we are talking about *file* associations.

IMHO correct place to put it would be in the system settings as it isn't only the file manager that uses the associations, file associations are still needed in Konqueror for using the web part, say if you click on a mp3 embedded in to a webpage, you want Amarok to play it or if you click on a .deb you want gdebi to open. Infact this applies to almost all apps:

Kmail
Basket
Akregator
Dolphin
Konqueror
Kopete
Strigi

The list is endless, so the obvious place to put it is in the system settings and not in every app that uses it to keep clutter to a minimum.

Just my opinion.

What I meant was file manager is not the wrong place to put it after all file manager is meant to handle stuffs related to files.

But putting it in "System Settings", though different, is an equally excellent design decision.

At the end of the day all we need is a clearly visible facility to change file associations.

IMHO this should be a control panel and wether it's in the file manager it's up to the manager itself.
That's because Konqueror and Dolphin are/were the DEFAUL file managers that KDE uses. They are not the only one (e.g. Krusader) and just like in windows it is not the file manager that uses file associations to run the correct app with a file. For example a correctly written KDE aware app can use the associations as well to open files. Why putting it to the only one file manager, that doesn't even appear in this process.

Anyway forwarding the bug to the Dolphin dev team doesn't at all help us to quickly fix the problem which originated from Kubuntu introducing the system-settings.

Hmmm... That's true. I very much accept that putting file associations in a central location is a definitely good idea.

Just a thought, may not be really possible, but what do you think about a common place on the system to hold all file association details. So that the associations can be used irrespective of the desktop environment one uses?

BTW, I have requested the dolphin development team and they have marked it as NEW.

You can visit it at http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151094

I hate to feel like I'm shooting you down again but I believe that the selections should be seperate between the environments as if I was ever to go in to Gnome I would rather be using the applications that are intended and integrated to that environment (even though I know Gnome applications are a disparate set sharing the GTK tool kit). There are very few exception where the Gnome equivalents are so far behind they aren't worth using (like Amarok & K3b equivalents) but this is too small a difference to entertain a shared file association database/list.

On a side note the settings:/ k-part still exists and I personally find it easier to use than system-settings but that may be because I am just used to it (it also still has the file association tool still in it)

Thanks for your patch, Slammer. I've tested it and think it's fine.

Please find attached a screenshot, which displays this.

This debdiff includes the patch from Slammer.

So is this going to be fixed in Hardy now? Would be great. I've seen several people waste a lot of time searching for this DE-wide setting since this wasn't included in systemsettings.

The fix has not been accepted/uploaded yet - I've subscribed ubuntu-main-sponsors now.

Jonathan, please take a look at it.

FYI: it seems to be fixed for KDE4 anyway, which includes "File Associations" in the Advanced section of System Settings.

Jonathan: can you take a look at it?

This bug was fixed in the package kde-systemsettings - 0.0svn20070312-0ubuntu5

---------------
kde-systemsettings (0.0svn20070312-0ubuntu5) hardy; urgency=low

  * Cleanup previous installed
    /etc/xdg/menus/kde-applications-merged/system-settings-merge.menu
    (LP: #127722)
  * Add link for file association handling to system settings (LP: #50320)
    - Added debian/patches/kubuntu_05_add_filetypes_submenu.diff:
    - Patch from Slammer
  * Fix "Settings Menu cannot launch default applications module"
    - LP: #132688
    - Patch from Marcus Harris
  * Fix lintian warnings in debian/control:
    - Standards-Version: 3.7.3
    - Remove build-essential from Build-Depends

 -- dAniel hAhler <email address hidden> Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:23:42 +0100

This is good news. Yet, I don't know if I should commend the effort or wonder why exactly did it took two years to finally re-implement something that comes in KDE's default install.

GreatBunzinni,
    Harsh and factually incorrect, 'system settings' was developed by the Kubuntu team for inclusion in the KDE project as a replacement for the 'settings' kio (The settings kio is better in my opinion but that's mainly due to unintuitive arrangement, ugly gui and some other missing parts of 'system settings' but I won't file a bug until I think through a better alternative), so it wasn't in the KDE default install until KDE4 which has only just come out and was correct straight away by the new maintiner in the KDE project.

Regards
Dave Taylor

There was no mistake. Kubuntu replaced kcontrol, which is KDE's configuration application and is a part of KDE's default install, with the "system settings" application, which, still up to this day, offers only a limited subset of the configuration options that is offered by kcontrol. Thanks to that decision, Kubuntu's users suddenly found themselves without any decent desktop configuration tool for nearly 2 years, which caused a few problems like the one portrayed in this bug report.

Granted, the system settings application is in fact easier on the eyes. Nonetheless, pretty doesn't mean squat if the user suddenly finds himself incapable of doing anything.