Show HN: TUI for managing XDG default applications

No one on earth has so far managed to get xdg default apps work on Linux. I've been failing since 19 years personally. If you've really succeded then congratulations!

Re: Show HN: TUI for managing XDG default applications

#7

Post by ranger_danger » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 12:55 PM UTC

cda2100 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

What have you shown that's better?

Re: Show HN: TUI for managing XDG default applications

#8

Post by jwrallie » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

Just by reading the title, I’m sold! This should be very useful specially if you are not using a desktop environment that manages the default apps.

I always alias open to xdg-open, it’s so useful to open a file directly from the terminal.

Re: Show HN: TUI for managing XDG default applications

#9

Post by nickjj » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

sourcegrift wrote: post #6

No one on earth has so far managed to get xdg default apps work on Linux. I've been failing since 19 years personally. If you've really succeded then congratulations!

> No one on earth has so far managed to get xdg default apps work on Linux.

I've only been using Linux for a few weeks but what am I missing here?

I set a bunch of mime types in `~/.config/mimeapps.list` which are assigned to desktop apps and they all open perfectly with `xdg-open` or when I launch them through a file manager.

It is documented in the XDG specification https://specifications.freedesktop.org/mime-apps/latest/file....

Re: Show HN: TUI for managing XDG default applications

#10

Post by roman_soldier » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 1:26 PM UTC

Nice, but problem with all these AI coded TUI's is we will have hundreds of them, best to stick to the built in linux commands, add aliases/abbreviations (fish) if required, do you need a TUI for everything? Sometimes the answer to "Should I write this?" Is no