Creating .desktop files to use on the "Open with other application" tab

Solution 1:

An example of a .desktop file to select vim terminal editor for your files in the Open with other application dialog is

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Vim Text Editor (Console)
Comment=Edit text files in a console using Vim
Exec=vim %u
Terminal=true
Type=Application
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/vim.svg
Categories=Application;Utility;TextEditor;
StartupNotify=true
MimeType=text/plain;
NoDisplay=true

Save this as ~/.local/share/applications/vim.desktop and the application will be automatically shown on Open with other application to be selected as default application.

The options for the .desktop files are many but its important to know what they mean.

nautilus-actions.org supplies a very good guide and explanations for creating your .desktop files and all the possible parameters that you can use on them so if you have any doubts about creating a special .desktop file you can visit the site and look at the examples there.

Solution 2:

When an installed app shows up on the r. click > open with but not on the r. click > properties > open with list it's usually because of the Exec= line in the app's .desktop

Two ways around - Just add the apps .desktop to an appropriate line in the [Default Applications] section of

~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

If the line already exists then you'd just replace the current .desktop with the intended app's .desktop

In the case of .tex the line would be