exo version: exo-open 0.5.2git-20100721-aef82478 (I'm using the gentoo xfce.git overlay) Nautilus version: GNOME nautilus 2.28.4 Thunar version: Thunar 1.1.0git-20100719-0cb2d9c0 (Xfce 4.7.0) xfdesktop version: This is xfdesktop version 4.7.0git-20100628-32784a81, running on Xfce 4.7.0. Built with GTK+ 2.18.9, linked with GTK+ 2.18.9. Build options: Desktop Menu: enabled Desktop Icons: enabled Desktop File Icons: disabled Description: When the Preferred Applications -> Utilities -> File Manager setting in exo-preferred-applications is not set to Thunar (if using Nautilus as the main file manager, for instance) exo-open tries to launch the selected file manager (Nautilus) regardless of the type of the file passed to it. Steps to reproduce: Install nautilus & set it as the preferred file manager. In the terminal, run 'exo-open someFile.png' for instance. Expected results: The application registered to open PNG files opens & loads the supplied file. Actual results: Nautilus is launched and displays an error box stating 'Could not display "/path/someFile.png". The location is not a folder.' Reproducible: Always. Changing the preferred file manager setting to Thunar returns exo-open to expected behavior. This seems to break third-party applications expecting exo-open to handle file type associations for them. Opening directories works even when Nautilus is set as the preferred file manager, but every other file type I have tried opening produces the results above.
Hmm, first of all, I don't consider this a blocker. The thing is that exo-preferred-applications assumes that a file manager knows how to launch all files using other applications. That's why it passes all files to the file manager and lets it resolve the file type and things like that. That's a design decision more or less. But I think we can improve the situation. Thunar uses GIO to determine the file type and default application for files. I guess we could do the same in exo (with not too much new code) and only launch the file manager if we don't have a default application. But even then, nautilus will fail while thunar will display a dialog to pick the application to open the file(s) with. So by doing the above, we'd still not fix all cases.
Ok fixed in a974e2d. We try harder to find an exo preferred application, directories and trash:// are always handled with the file manager, try default application for content type and if nothing worked, try gtk_show_uri().