eclipse: /etc/eclipse.ini /usr/lib/eclipse /usr/lib64/eclipse

Note how the non-executable file "eclipse.ini" was also found and returned. If eclipse had not been found, maybe because it had been installed as, for instance, /home/daniel/test/eclipse, I would then add /home/daniel/test to the path. My example of "/blender/path" was meant to be replaced by the actual path to the blender executable.

typing in whereis blender returned this…

blender:

so I assumed that was all the file path I needed….

so I then typed in PATH=$PATH:/blender/path just as in structed… in the terminal window…
I then went over and tried opening a .blender file… and I got the error message just as before except this time I typed in PATH=$PATH:/blender/path into the "custom" entry field and tried opening a file and sure enough Blender did suddenly start opening it's own files…

Thanks for the Great Information!!!

I am steadily falling in love with Linux!

As https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables shows, you then add the path you found to /etc/environment through "sudo gedit /etc/environment" by adding (at its end) something like "PATH=$PATH:/blender/path".

Another way, perhaps more elegant, to get blender "on the path" is to add a link to the blender app somewhere in the pre-existing path —typically in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.

(Use gksudo instead of sudo if it is installed; it is more GUI-friendly)

I think that once blender is on the path it'll show up in the list of possible applications to associate .blender with.

Okay so I open the mimapps.list file and I edit that?
that is to say I add a line that says something to the effect of …
(I'm not sure what it should say…)
I'm still a little lost here…

let me add some information…
when I double click on a .blend file (which is the type of file that blender creates)
I get the following message…

***Could not display"/home/norvman/111_BlenderWork…oket/ArrayedSproket_017.blend.
There is no application installed for Blender scene files***

if I then click on the "select Application" button
it gives me long list of all the Apps on my Ubuntu install but Blender 2.56 is not on this list…

So perhaps the more proper question to ask then is Why is Blender 2.56 not on that list and how to get it on that list?

again… I did not "install" Blender 2.56 thru Ubuntu Software Center nor did I use Synaptic Package Manager… I merely downloaded the Blender 2.56 files, unpacked them into a folder and made a link to the main executable file to a desktop icon…

but that has obviously left the file associations disconnected…

perhaps this is an off topic problem now… ?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

For those reasons I do not think you found the same file at all.

I'm having some trouble find this file…
~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

what I did find was ~/usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

is that the same file?

(I"m using Ubuntu10.4) Which by the way does not display a "Custom" window to enter any kind of a special terminal commands…
What it does do is give a list of all applications… however just as I described… I did not 'install' Blender 2.56… I merely downloaded it, unpacked it into a folder and made a link to it's executable file…

Also I kind of have an inkling that what is needed is some Blender associative files in these locations you've named however how to create those and were all to put them… being new to Using Linux full time (almost a year now of usage) I simply have not had time to get failure with it all… (it does remind me a lot of old AmigaDos however.

The file associations created by each user are stored in ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

Each association is stored in a .desktop file. For instance, if I create an association for .info files, mimeapps.list will add a line like:

application/x-extension-info=userapp-gnome-terminal-DR3APV.desktop;

(It reads "userapp-gnome-terminal…" because I used a command line that begins with "gnome-terminal"; see below)

The "Custom command" you enter during association creation has an " %f" argument added automatically to it, representing the file being opened. Things get tricky if you want the "%f" elsewhere than at the end. For instance, if I enter the following custom command for .info files:

gnome-terminal –command="info %f"

The .desktop will store this line:

Exec=gnome-terminal –command="info %f" %f

The additional %f is ignored by gnome-terminal, but this may not be the case for other applications you may use in the custom command line. Your best bet may very well be to edit the .desktop Exec line after creating the association.

You can use the occasion to change the name that appears in the contextual menu. In our example, the menu will read "Open with gnome-terminal". To change this, edit the Name line in the .desktop file. Thus:

Name=info

Will make the menu read "Open with info". This Name is also the one used in the list of applications shown by the "Open with…" dialog.