How does Deficon work?

[Joeled]

I want to make all my jpg/jpeg pictures to open with LoView. I thought i just started deficons searched for jpg/jpeg and doubleclicked on it, and from the icon tab i choosed my program. That doesnt work. In deficon and and under jpg/jpeg i see the path to loview but it doesnt associate .jpg and .jpeg with all my files on the computer. I checked wbstartup and everything is ok there. Any idea? Is there someway to restore default?

Thanks!

[thomasrapp]

In deficon and and under jpg/jpeg i see the path to loview but it doesnt associate .jpg and .jpeg with all my files on the computer.

Did you reboot? Changes done to envarc:sys/def_#? icons need to be applied to env:sys/#?, too. And directories which are already open need to be closed and reopened so that all icons are read again. It's easier to reboot.

Is there someway to restore default?

To restore DefIcons prefs copy envarc:sys/deficons.prefs from your installation CD and reboot.
To restore default file type associations copy the appropiate icon files in envarc:sys/def_#?.info from your installation CD and reboot.

[Joeled]

@thomasrapp
Thanks will give it a try tomorrow!

[nbache]

Also make sure your JPEG files do not have real icons (.info files) already, which they would e.g. if you had snapshotted them earlier. Otherwise they will still use the default tool which is set in those icons rather than the one you set up through DefIcons.

Best regards,

Niels

[Joeled]

Also make sure your JPEG files do not have real icons (.info files) already, which they would e.g. if you had snapshotted them earlier. Otherwise they will still use the default tool which is set in those icons rather than the one you set up through DefIcons.

How could i change them to work with the program i choose?

[Joeled]

To restore default file type associations copy the appropiate icon files in envarc:sys/def_#?.info from your installation CD and reboot.

Please Thomas can you give me a better description how to do this? I dont know OAS4 that good yet. I want to get all files restored to default so i can try to associate them again. I checked envarc on my system and deficons prefs is the same as i have in sys:prefs/deficons but it doesnt associated anything for me. It uses multiview whatever i try to change,

[thomasrapp]

There is a two-step system to associate files without icons to default programs:

1. in prefs/DefIcons you define how to identify a file.

deficons.png (6.14 KiB) Viewed 7817 times

On the right you see the comparisons done to the file or its contents in order to identify its type and on the left in the name field you see the file type which is associated. In the example it is jpeg. This means that all files which are identified by the comparisons will show the icon which is taken from env:sys/def_jpeg.info.

You also see in the list browser that there is a hierarchy in file types. This means that if env:sys/def_jpeg.info does not exist, it tries env:sys/def_picture.info. And if this does not exist, either, it tries env:sys/def_project.info.

2. once an icon file is selected, the default tool specified in the icon file is used to open the file.

iconinfo.png (6.84 KiB) Viewed 7817 times

Note that the entire mechanism only applies to files which do not have an icon on their own.

So if you have a file called mypicture.jpg and another file in the same directory called mypicture.jpg.info, then this mypicture.jpg.info is always used, no matter what you enter into env:sys/def_jpeg.info.

In order to use deficons for mypicture.jpg, you have to delete mypicture.jpg.info.

In order to restore all def icons you need to copy all def_xxxx.info files from your installation CD to envarc:sys.

Finally, please don't mix up Workbench with Windows Explorer. Workbench only shows icons, it does not show files. Workbench is not good to execute file operations like copy, move, rename and so on. If you need to do such operations which make it necessary to see all files (usual files and icons), you should either use the Shell/CLI or or a directory tool like DirOpus.

[Joeled]

In order to restore all def icons you need to copy all def_xxxx.info files from your installation CD to envarc:sys.
Finally, please don't mix up Workbench with Windows Explorer. Workbench only shows icons, it does not show files. Workbench is not good to execute file operations like copy, move, rename and so on. If you need to do such operations which make it necessary to see all files (usual files and icons), you should either use the Shell/CLI or or a directory tool like DirOpus.

Thank you Thomas! I appreciate all help from you. Now its working I did a faq in Swedish how to use Deficons. Alot of ppl included myself didnt know how to make it work.