The order of entries in the /etc/mailcap file can be altered by editing
the /etc/mailcap.order file. Please see the mailcap.order(5) man page
for more information.
To create entries in the mailcap file, packages need to create a file
in the /usr/lib/mime/packages directory. In this file goes the verba‐
tim desired mailcap entries. In addition to the standard mailcap op‐
tions (described below) is a new priority option. Specifying this will
provide for simple ranking of programs within a given mime type. An
animation viewer, for example, may be able to display a static picture,
but probably wouldn't be the best choice and so would give an option
like "priority=2". Priorities range from 0 to 9, with 0 being the low‐
est and 9 being the highest. If the priority option is omitted, a
value of 5 is used.
The following are standard options that can be specified in the mailcap
entry. Options are separated by semicolons (;) but must all be on the
same line. Each line should look like:
mime/type; viewer; option; another=val; etc; priority=5
Mime types of the form "class/*" and even "*/*" are now acceptable
(they were previously disallowed). When using "class/*", it is proba‐
bly a good idea to add a "priority=[1-4]" option so specific rules us‐
ing the default priority will get chosen first. If using "*/*",
though, you probably want to add a "priority=0" option to make that
rule a "last resort".
Commands
Specifies the program to run to view a file of the given con‐
tent-type. This option setting cannot be omitted. An implicit
"view=" can be considered before it. When writing an entry that
has no viewer, use a value of false in this space.
compose=
The "compose" command may be used to specify a program that can
be used to compose a new body or body part in the given format.
Its intended use is to support mail composing agents that sup‐
port the composition of multiple types of mail using external
composing agents. The result of the composing program may be
data that is not yet suitable for mail transport -- that is, a
Content-Transfer-Encoding may need to be applied to the data.
composetyped=
The "composetyped" command is similar to "compose", but is to be
used when the composing program needs to specify the Content-
type header field to be applied to the composed data. The "com‐
pose" option is simpler, and is preferred for use with existing
(non-mail-oriented) programs for composing data in a given for‐
mat. The "composetyped" option is necessary when the Content-
type information must include auxiliary parameters, and the com‐
position program must then know enough about mail formats to
produce output that includes the mail type information.
edit=
The "edit" command may be used to specify a program that can be
used to edit a body or body part in the given format. In many
cases, it may be identical in content to the "compose" command.
print=
The "print" command may be used to specify a program that can be
used to print a message or body part in the given format.
Modifiers
These options are modifiers to all the commands specified on the com‐
mand line.
test=
The "test" option may be used to test some external condition
(e.g., the machine architecture, or the window system in use) to
determine whether or not the mailcap line applies. It specifies
a program to be run to test some condition. If the test fails,
a subsequent mailcap entry will be sought. Multiple test op‐
tions are not permitted -- since a test can call a program, it
can already be arbitrarily complex.
Note: When testing for X by looking at the DISPLAY environment
variable, please use one of:
test=test -z "$DISPLAY" (no X)
or test=test -n "$DISPLAY" (have X)
Many programs recognize these strings and optimize for them.
needsterminal
The "needsterminal" option, if given, indicates that the com‐
mands must be run on an interactive terminal. This is needed to
inform window-oriented user agents that an interactive terminal
is needed. (The decision is not left exclusively to the command
because in some circumstances it may not be possible for such
programs to tell whether or not they are on interactive termi‐
nals.) The needsterminal command applies to the view, compose
and edit commands, if they exist. Note that this is NOT a test
-- it is a requirement for the environment in which the program
will be executed, and will typically cause the creation of a
terminal window when not executed on either a real terminal or a
terminal window.
copiousoutput
The "copiousoutput" option, if given, indicates that the output
from the view-command will be an extended stream of output and
is to be interpreted as advice to the UA (User Agent mail-read‐
ing program) that the output should be either paged or made
scrollable. Note that it is probably a mistake if needsterminal
and copiousoutput are both specified.
Content-Type Info
These options provide additional information about the given content-
type.
description=
The "description" option simply provides a textual description
that describes the type of data, to be used optionally by mail
readers that wish to describe the data before offering to dis‐
play it.
textualnewlines
The "textualnewlines" option, if given, indicates that this type
of data is line-oriented and that, if encoded in a binary for‐
mat, all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF)
before encoding, and will be in that form after decoding. In
general, this is needed only if there is line-oriented data of
some type other than text/* or non-line-oriented data that is a
subtype of text.
x11-bitmap=
The "x11-bitmap" option names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) for‐
mat, which points to an appropriate icon to be used to visually
denote the presence of this kind of data.
nametemplate=
The "nametemplate" option gives a file name format, in which %s
will be replaced by a short unique string to give the name of
the temporary file to be passed to the viewing command. This is
only expected to be relevant in environments where filename ex‐
tensions are meaningful, e.g., one could specify that a GIF file
being passed to a gif viewer should have a name ending in ".gif"
by using "nametemplate=%s.gif".
Packages that wish to provide MIME access to themselves should not de‐
pend on, recommend, or suggest mime-support, as the the file they cre‐
ate in /usr/lib/mime/packages will cause update-mime to be automati‐
cally run via a Dpkg trigger.
In addition to the abovementioned mechanism update-mime also parses
desktop entries in /usr/share/applications/ to generate mailcap en‐
tries. These entries are given a lower priority than those in
/usr/lib/mime/packages.
update-mime updates the /etc/mailcap file to reflect mime information
changed by a Debian package during installation or removal.
OPTIONS
--local Generate files in the current user's home directory instead of
the /etc directory. This allows users to create a custom ordering con‐
figuration and get a complete ~/.mailcap file out of it. In this local
mode, the order overriding file (see below) will be looked for in the
~/.mailcap.order file.
