Default applications for nnn (or xdg-open)

Default Applications on Linux

If you are using nnn and you want to open mp3, mp4, text or audio files with command line programs then this small article will help you. NOTE: this also works for GUI programs, but usually they include some .desktop file in their package.

Create a file for every command line program at ~/.local/share/applications/cli-prog.desktop and then you can use it in ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list as a reference.

Example

Here's an example for vim and text files:

~/.local/share/applications/vim.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=vim
Name=vim
Type=Application
  • See here for more information on the .desktop file format: freedesktop.org

and inside ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list add the following line:

...
text/plain=vim.desktop;
...

now nnn will use vim (actually xdg-open will handle this)

Get correct MIME type of a file

If you need to get the filetype of a file to associate it with an application you can use this command:

xdg-mime query filetype FILE.EXT

Then you have to add RESULT/cli-prog.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list