[Solved] Optical drive preferred application issue in Elyssa

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Lantesh

[Solved] Optical drive preferred application issue in Elyssa

Post by Lantesh »

In Daryna I remember being able to change the default preferred application for DVD's when inserted in an optical drive. In the Control Center this setting was not under the "Preferred Applications" in the Personal section, but rather under what I believe was actually called "Optical Drives" in the Hardware section. That appears to now be gone in Elyssa. I do see "Removable Drives and Media", but the setting to change the default application for the optical drives is not in there, and it's not in "Preferred Applications" either. Does anyone know where this has been moved to, or is this a bug? Oh and of course I have already done the "right click change default app" on every type of media file and set it to my preferred choice. That trick only works on files stored on the hard drive. Inserting a DVD into an optical drive is an entirely different matter.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Lantesh

Re: Optical drive preferred application issue in Elyssa

Post by Lantesh »

Ok I've managed some limited success on this. If you open Nautilus, and click Edit/Preferences, and go to the media tab you can make a change here. The problem is the choices are limited, and you can't enter a custom command for the application you want. For some reason the only application showing on the list was Movie Player, along with Do Nothing, Open Folder, Ask What to Do, or Open Movie Player. I decided to try the "Ask What to Do" option, figuring once the disk loaded I'd be given options for different applications. Well no dice. I just got the same damn choices again. So I set it to "Do Nothing". I figure that's better than Movie Player opening up, me having to close it, and then open SMPlayer. So I think this is what I'm stuck with unless anyone has any more ideas. I just can't understand why I can't enter a custom command. We had this option in Daryna.
Lantesh

Re: Optical drive preferred application issue in Elyssa

Post by Lantesh »

Ok I've got this one solved for anyone who needs it. This Info came from schaumkeks over on the Ubuntu Forums. This is almost a cut and paste of his original text, with a couple changes. For example he was using nano, and I changed it to gedit. I listed it this way, because this is what I used, and this is what I can verify worked. His example uses VLC, but this should work for your video player of choice.


"Because there are not many applications that are already shipped with a desktop file for the new mime types, we have to do some manual work.

An easy approach with VLC as player for Video-DVDs without messing with any existing system files (I've seen some cruel hacks in the forums) would be the following:"

Create an alternative launcher for VLC in the systems overlay directory (different name or we would override the original):
$ sudo cp /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop /usr/local/share/applications/vlc_video-dvd.desktop

Edit the copied file (with sudo gedit or your preferred editor):
sudo gedit /usr/local/share/applications/vlc_video-dvd.desktop

and add or change the following entries: Exec=vlc %f

With this line VLC appears in the Video-DVD list in nautilus preferences:
MimeType=x-content/video-dvd;

Hide this entry from the applications menu: NoDisplay=true

Finally, update the desktop-database to make the entry visible:
$sudo update-desktop-database

Edit: Just out of curiosity I'm surprised nobody else has posted up here on this topic. I guess you are all happy with Totem as the default. I'm now enjoying SMPlayer, and it's really nice to watch my DVDs auto load and play in it by default. 8)
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