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It's my first attempt to customize the application menu in Cinnamon (out-of-the-box, standard Linux Mint desktop environment). I want to associate a file extension to a menu item (i.e. set a preference).

I would like to set a preference to open PostScript (*.ps) files with Ghostview (the X10 front-end / GUI for Ghostwriter). I found a suggestion on Superuser, which I tried to follow, as such: From the desktop, I can navigate menu-> configure -> choose the tab, "Menu" -> then, "Open the Menu Editor", but, having arrived at this location, regardless of whether I choose New Menu or New Item, I cannot get either of these dialog boxes to accept my entries (i.e., I can only choose Cancel, never OK).

As I cannot get beyond this point, I cannot determine if I am even in the correct place to associate a file type (*.ps in this case) with a given application.

Blindspots
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Birdman
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1 Answers1

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This is what I discovered while trying to resolve this.

In Cinnamon (the out-of-the-box, standard Linux Mint desktop environment), desktop menu--> configure --> menu --> open the menu editor is not the correct place to make this file association. That location is where you can choose the groupings of your applications by their overall functionality, and also create additional functional groupings.

The place to make the file association with a default executable is directly from a file of the desired type (eg. my_file.ps):

  1. Right-mouse-click the file in question,
  2. then choose open with --> other --> other application --> field "type or choose a custom executable..."
  3. You can then choose to make that executable the default for that file-type (*.extension), or use it only as a one-shot

The right-click-from-the-desired-file menu method is a familiar one. It can be done this way in Windows, for example. However, while Windows has the option to perform file-opening associations from a GUI desktop-menu, the confusingly similar Linux Mint (Cinnamon) cascading menu does not (to the best of my current knowledge) have such functionality.

Blindspots
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Birdman
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