exp-preferred-application is used in the preset configuration for keyboard shortcuts. This is useful. However, default visual-editor is not something that the exo-preferred-application can handle. It should be able to. <Super>+e currently opens up Mousepad, (Xubuntu 13.10). This is not my desired editor. I'd much like it if exo-preferred-application was able to support editors, then I'd have my editor set to gvim. On further note, it'd be great if exo-* defaulted to the Debian defaulted to /etc/alternatives/editor. lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Oct 1 16:04 /usr/bin/editor -> /etc/alternatives/editor ecarroll@x230:~/code$ ls -lah /etc/alternatives/editor lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Oct 1 20:50 /etc/alternatives/editor -> /usr/bin/vim.basic On debian, /usr/bin/editor is a symlink to /etc/alternatives/editor which is what the distro's update-alternatives uses. This is set to /usr/bin/vim.basic.