Setting a default application on DICE

On DICE some types of files - for instance PDF documents - have a default application. This is the application that will be used when you click on the icon for a file or open a file that your web browser cannot view directly.

If you don't like the default, you can change it. This page explains how to do that.

Step 1: Find out the MIME type

Each file has a "MIME type". To find out what it is, start a terminal window and type mimetype and the name of the file. For example:

$ mimetype guide.pdf
guide.pdf: application/pdf

In this example, the MIME type of a PDF document is application/pdf.

Step 2: Find the default application

To find out the default application for a particular MIME type, use gio mime. For instance:

$ gio mime application/pdf
Default application for “application/pdf”: org.gnome.Evince.desktop
Registered applications:
	org.gnome.Evince.desktop
	gimp.desktop
	google-chrome.desktop
	inkscape.desktop
	libreoffice-draw.desktop
	pdfarranger.desktop
	display-im6.q16.desktop
Recommended applications:
	org.gnome.Evince.desktop
	gimp.desktop
	google-chrome.desktop
	inkscape.desktop
	libreoffice-draw.desktop
	pdfarranger.desktop
	display-im6.q16.desktop

Step 3: Set the default application

You can also use gio mime to change the default application - for example:

$ gio mime application/pdf gimp.desktop
Set gimp.desktop as the default for application/pdf