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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: MIME types and extensions
From:       Thiago Macieira <thiagom () wanadoo ! fr>
Date:       2001-12-19 14:15:13
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Manuel Arriaga wrote:

> On this particular point, and after having read Klas' comment, I tend to 
> disagree with you... as Klas put it, breaking the "icon<->file type" mapping 
> would probably confuse the user and lead people to question the usefulness of 
> having different icons for different file types. (Just my opinion.) 

Just throwing another point in the discussion: how about files whose 
MIME type can be discovered by a third way (i.e., not by the contents or 
the suffix)?

I can think of two examples: files downloaded from HTTP, which specifies 
Content-type headers (e-mails do too...) and filesystem metadata. My 
opinion is that we should honour that, since whoever sent it should know 
better what it is sending. In those cases, the icon shown could be 
completely different that what was expected from the suffix. (How many 
times have you seen an .rpm with a music icon by its side?)

And since I mentioned it, is support for filesystem metadata planned? 
Some systems have it already, some will do soon. I'm talking about both 
ACLs and what SGI calls "extended attributes". Saving MIME types in 
there could be really handy, since it wouldn't take a complex matching 
operation to find the type, nor would it "take away" the freedom to name 
files as we want them.

-- 
   Thiago Macieira - UFOT Registry number: 1001
  thiagom@mail.com
    ICQ UIN: 1967141  PGP: 0x8F2978D5 and 0xEA9037A5 (PGP 2.x)
      Registered Linux user #65028

 
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