How to enable dropping any file type on particular or any Unity launcher item?

Question

For example I cannot drag and drop folders and .py files to the meld using launcher but it accepts them perfectly.

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doug · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-05 14:53:30Z

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Locate the .desktop of app you wish to adjust, in the case meld & open in a text editor.

Usually there will be a line, MimeType=, just add to it the appropriate type, if you don't know then a right click > Properties > Type will show.

So in this case, 'Meld', you'd add this to the end of the MimeType= line

text/x-python;inode/directory;

If for some reason the line didn't exist the just add it, like

MimeType=text/x-python;inode/directory;

Usually a logout/in will be needed to reflect changes.

For meld - try also editing the Exec= line in the .desktop to this

Exec=meld %F

Other possibilities for letter would be f or U, though glancing at the report I'm not sure it will matter much here with meld

edited Dec 5 '11 at 14:53

answered Dec 5 '11 at 13:34

doug
5,8631915

	Great :) Editing it right now. Can I use wildcards? – int_ua Dec 5 '11 at 13:51
	It didn't work for meld (bug report: bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=641948 ). But it answers the question. – int_ua Dec 5 '11 at 14:00
	wildcards?, I don't know, never tried. I'd think better to add specific types as desired. Generally it seems .desktops no longer have a inode/directory entry, though I do edit in for a few media players. Though having it show is no guarantee that the app can deal with properly as you've seen. Never tried with meld, if any solution appears will edit in to answer – doug Dec 5 '11 at 14:16
	`meld %F` worked, thanks :) – int_ua Dec 8 '11 at 18:15
	BTW, `MimeType=inode/directory;text/*;` worked as expected. – int_ua Dec 11 '11 at 20:30

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