Re: setting default pdf viewer

[prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com>]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:

> prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> wrote:
>
>> how do i set evince as the default.
>> 
>> right now xpdf is, but if i remove it, following a link to a pdf file
>> produces nothing.
>> 
>> i'm using gnome and evince is the default there (eg through nautilus),
>> so somehow it seems that orgmode has decided to make xpdf the default
>> instead.
>> 
>
> But why is org using xpdf, if the system default is evince?
>
that's what i can't figure out - but admittedly i haven't looked too
deeply into this.

> What OS are you running? At least on unix/linux-y systems, you shouldn't
> have to customize org-file-apps: just check ~/.mailcap (and/or
> /etc/mailcap).
>
i'm on debian squeeze.

here's what i found in /etc/mailcap

application/pdf; /usr/bin/xpdf '%s'; test=test "$DISPLAY" != ""; description=Portable Document Format; nametemplate=%s.pdf

application/x-pdf; /usr/bin/xpdf '%s'; test=test "$DISPLAY" != ""; description=Portable Document Format; nametemplate=%s.pdf

application/pdf; evince '%s'; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"; nametemplate=%s.pdf

however, i'm not sure how to interpret this.

> IMO, changing mailcap has the advantage that *all* mailcap-enabled
> applications will do the right thing, whereas customizing org-file-apps
> just fixes org (I'm assuming of course that you always want evince, not
> sometimes one and sometimes the other.)
>
ya that would be good!
since it is consistency that i'm after, i'd prefer to have emacs run
evince because it is the system default rather than because i've changed
the variable.


-- 
in friendship,
prad