MAILCAP.ORDER(5)                      Order Mailcap Entries                      MAILCAP.ORDER(5)



NAME
       /etc/mailcap.order - the mailcap ordering specifications

DESCRIPTION
       The  order  of  entries  in the /etc/mailcap file can be altered by editing the /etc/mail‐
       cap.order file.  Each line of that file specifies a package and  an  optional  mime  type.
       Mailcap  entries  that match will be placed in the order of this file.  Entries that don't
       match will be placed later.

   Example
           mime-support:*/*
           gv:application/postscript
           netscape:text/html
           less:text/*
           emacs:text/*

       The above would make any entries provided by the mime-support package  (as  found  in  the
       /usr/lib/mime/packages directory) take priority over everything else.  The gv package will
       be used over anything else when it comes to postscript documents.  Netscape will  be  used
       for  any  html documents and less will be used for any remaining text documents.  However,
       since neither netscape or less provide for editing documents, any edit or compose  actions
       will fall through to the emacs rules.

       After modifying this file, be sure to run /usr/sbin/update-mime (as root) to propagate the
       changes into the /etc/mailcap file.

       Remember that this files takes package names and not executable names.   If  you  want  to
       define rules that reference specific programs, the best way is to include them in ~/.mail‐
       cap or the user section of the /etc/mailcap file.

LIMITATIONS
       There is currently no way to break out a certain type from a wildcard rule.  If, for exam‐
       ple, both xv and gimp were to specify "image/*" rules, it isn't possible to use xv for gif
       images but use gimp for jpeg images.

       Also, I would like to add the ability to specify certain actions in the rules.  For  exam‐
       ple,  if netscape were to have an edit rule but I wanted to use emacs for editing/creating
       html documents, I could place a line like

         emacs:text/* action=edit|compose

       before the netscape entry.  The update-mime program would then spit out entries such  that
       netscape  view rule comes before the emacs view rule but have the netscape edit rule comes
       after the emacs edit rule.

AUTHOR
       The mailcap.order specification was written by Brian White <bcwhite AT pobox.com>



Debian Project                            16th Aug 1998                          MAILCAP.ORDER(5)