Manual: update-mime
UPDATE-MIME(8) Update MIME Programs UPDATE-MIME(8)
NAME
update-mime - create or update MIME information
SYNOPSIS
update-mime [no parameters]
DESCRIPTION
update-mime updates the /etc/mailcap file to reflect mime information changed by a Debian package
during installation or removal.
OPTIONS
--local Generate files in the current user's home directory instead of the /etc directory. This alā
lows users to create a custom ordering configuration and get a complete ~/.mailcap file out of it.
In this local mode, the order overriding file (see below) will be looked for in the ~/.mailcap.order
file.
OVERRIDING ORDER
The order of entries in the /etc/mailcap file can be altered by editing the /etc/mailcap.order file.
Please see the mailcap.order(5) man page for more information.
CREATING ENTRIES
To create entries in the mailcap file, packages need to create a file in the /usr/lib/mime/packages
directory. In this file goes the verbatim desired mailcap entries. In addition to the standard
mailcap options (described below) is a new priority option. Specifying this will provide for simple
ranking of programs within a given mime type. An animation viewer, for example, may be able to disā
play a static picture, but probably wouldn't be the best choice and so would give an option like
"priority=2". Priorities range from 0 to 9, with 0 being the lowest and 9 being the highest. If the
priority option is omitted, a value of 5 is used.
The following are standard options that can be specified in the mailcap entry. Options are separated
by semicolons (;) but must all be on the same line. Each line should look like:
mime/type; viewer; option; another=val; etc; priority=5
Mime types of the form "class/*" and even "*/*" are now acceptable (they were previously disallowed).
When using "class/*", it is probably a good idea to add a "priority=[1-4]" option so specific rules
using the default priority will get chosen first. If using "*/*", though, you probably want to add a
"priority=0" option to make that rule a "last resort".
Commands
Specifies the program to run to view a file of the given content-type. This option setting
cannot be omitted. An implicit "view=" can be considered before it. When writing an entry
that has no viewer, use a value of false in this space.
compose=
The "compose" command may be used to specify a program that can be used to compose a new body
or body part in the given format. Its intended use is to support mail composing agents that
support the composition of multiple types of mail using external composing agents. The result
of the composing program may be data that is not yet suitable for mail transport -- that is, a
Content-Transfer-Encoding may need to be applied to the data.
composetyped=
The "composetyped" command is similar to "compose", but is to be used when the composing proā
gram needs to specify the Content-type header field to be applied to the composed data. The
"compose" option is simpler, and is preferred for use with existing (non-mail-oriented) proā
grams for composing data in a given format. The "composetyped" option is necessary when the
Content-type information must include auxiliary parameters, and the composition program must
then know enough about mail formats to produce output that includes the mail type information.
edit=
The "edit" command may be used to specify a program that can be used to edit a body or body
part in the given format. In many cases, it may be identical in content to the "compose" comā
mand.
print=
The "print" command may be used to specify a program that can be used to print a message or
body part in the given format.
Modifiers
These options are modifiers to all the commands specified on the command line.
test=
The "test" option may be used to test some external condition (e.g., the machine architecture,
or the window system in use) to determine whether or not the mailcap line applies. It speciā
fies a program to be run to test some condition. If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap enā
try will be sought. Multiple test options are not permitted -- since a test can call a proā
gram, it can already be arbitrarily complex.
Note: When testing for X by looking at the DISPLAY environment variable, please use one of:
test=test -z "$DISPLAY" (no X)
or test=test -n "$DISPLAY" (have X)
Many programs recognize these strings and optimize for them.
needsterminal
The "needsterminal" option, if given, indicates that the commands must be run on an interacā
tive terminal. This is needed to inform window-oriented user agents that an interactive terā
minal is needed. (The decision is not left exclusively to the command because in some circumā
stances it may not be possible for such programs to tell whether or not they are on interacā
tive terminals.) The needsterminal command applies to the view, compose and edit commands, if
they exist. Note that this is NOT a test -- it is a requirement for the environment in which
the program will be executed, and will typically cause the creation of a terminal window when
not executed on either a real terminal or a terminal window.
copiousoutput
The "copiousoutput" option, if given, indicates that the output from the view-command will be
an extended stream of output and is to be interpreted as advice to the UA (User Agent mail-
reading program) that the output should be either paged or made scrollable. Note that it is
probably a mistake if needsterminal and copiousoutput are both specified.
Content-Type Info
These options provide additional information about the given content-type.
description=
The "description" option simply provides a textual description that describes the type of
data, to be used optionally by mail readers that wish to describe the data before offering to
display it.
textualnewlines
The "textualnewlines" option, if given, indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
that, if encoded in a binary format, all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF)
before encoding, and will be in that form after decoding. In general, this is needed only if
there is line-oriented data of some type other than text/* or non-line-oriented data that is a
subtype of text.
x11-bitmap=
The "x11-bitmap" option names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriā
ate icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
nametemplate=
The "nametemplate" option gives a file name format, in which %s will be replaced by a short
unique string to give the name of the temporary file to be passed to the viewing command.
This is only expected to be relevant in environments where filename extensions are meaningful,
e.g., one could specify that a GIF file being passed to a gif viewer should have a name ending
in ".gif" by using "nametemplate=%s.gif".
DEPENDENCIES
Packages that wish to provide MIME access to themselves should not depend on, recommend, or suggest
mime-support, as the the file they create in /usr/lib/mime/packages will cause update-mime to be auā
tomatically run via a Dpkg trigger.
DESKTOP ENTRIES
In addition to the abovementioned mechanism update-mime also parses desktop entries in /usr/share/apā
plications/ to generate mailcap entries. These entries are given a priority of 5, unless they appear
in one of the desktop environment /usr/share/applications/*-mimeapps.list files, in which case they
get a priority of 6. This helps ensure that applications recommended as defaults for users get a
higher priority than other applications that might handle the same types.
SEE ALSO
mailcap.order(5), deb-triggers(1), RFC-2046, RFC-1524
AUTHOR
update-mime was written by Brian White
COPYRIGHT
update-mime is in the public domain (the only true "free").
Debian Project 12th Feb 2012 UPDATE-MIME(8)