By default gnumeric is set for opening xls files - it would make sense to set abiword as the default for .abw (its native format) and .doc files (word docs) Additionally it would be nice to be able to right click on the desktop and be able to make a new abiword doc. so two files need to be made to make this happen: for the right-click desktop entry you need: /usr/share/mc/templates/abiword.desktop it should look like this: [Desktop Entry] Name=AbiWord Comment=The AbiWord word processor Exec=/usr/bin/AbiWord Icon=abiword_48.png Terminal=0 Type=Application and for the mime-type default for .abw and doc files you need this file: /usr/share/mime-info it should contain: application/msword: [en_US]open=AbiWord %f text/abiword: [en_US]edit=AbiWord %f [en_US]open=AbiWord %f That is it - it should work just fine. this would be an easy and nice thing to add for the gnome users
We (Red Hat) should really try to resolve this before next release.
Fixed in 0.7.13-2
This is still broken for me in 7.1-release. I fixed it by copying abiword.desktop to /usr/share/gnome/apps/Applications so it shows up in the 'Open With' menu, and then adding MIME-types manually to gmc so I can directly open these files.
Note that the mime type for application/x-abiword already exists, but has blank fields for Open, View, and Edit.