MIME-types define different file types allowing the operating system to deal with them correctly. Many generic file types are already defined in Puppy such as Jpegs and Mp3s. These are defined by XML description files in the freedesktop.org's package SharedMimeInfo shared-mime-info. If a program only a generic filetype rather than a specific format there is no need to add a MIME-type - instead AssociateFiles associate existing MIME-type to that program.

1. This method cannot be used in standard Puppy. It requires XML description files and command update-mime-database. These are often provided by loading the appropriate devx devx sfs.

Caution: running update-mime-database without the XML descriptions will remove most of your MIME-types stored in globs, globs2 etc. To add a MIME-type without needing add all descriptions see below.

2. Provide extra MIME-type information to add in an XML description file located at /usr/share/mime/packages/

For example this is Audacity Audacity's, /usr/share/mime/packages/audacity.xml

3. This information is then added to various files in using the command update-mime-database /usr/share/mime (files updated include globs, globs2, magic, subclasses, aliases, icons, generic-icons, XMLnamespaces and mime.cache).

Note in standard Puppy as the XML descriptions in /usr/share/mime/... and the command update-mime-database have been removed - this saves about 2.5Mb of space.

This method works without loading the devx devx sfs.

All ROXFiler ROX needs is an extra line adding to various files in /usr/share/mime (minimally just globs). The echo and >> commands can do this. For example, observing update-mime-database on audacity.xml the equilavent code is:

This code can be added to the pinstall.sh file in a PETs PET package. The following code removes the lines added, which can be put in puninstall.sh (take care as mistakes can break MIME-Types):

You should still include the XML MIME-type description, otherwise if update-mime-database is used the added lines will be removed but new description written.

AssociateFiles - How Associate filetypes

InternetMediaTypes Internet Media Types