Firefox open file download with WINE application

General Help
1

I'm hoping to use Firefox to open an ascm (Adobe Digital Editions) file with a WINE version of Digital Editions. But unfortunately the dialogue box where I'm asked to choose an application with which to open the file doesn't include WINE apps.

I can open the ascm file with Digital Editions by saving the file to Downloads and then opening it with the Install Windows Application. Which produces a dialogue box asking me if I'm sure I want to run URLLink.acsm and then warning that "URLLink.acsm is an unknown Windows app." Clicking Run opens Digital Editions and completes the process.

It works but it's all a bit clumsy and I'd very much prefer to open it from Firefox as I've been able to with other Linux distros.

Any ideas or suggestions how to overcome this hurdle much appreciated.

Thanks for your help

2

Which version of Zorin are you on, just to clarify (unless it's written somewhere and I've missed it, in which case my apologies). Also, whichever version you're on, when did you install the OS? (specifically, which version of that OS). The main direction I'm going here is that it's possible that your Firefox is installed as a Flatpak whereas the newer ISOs for Zorin have it included as a deb. This could potentially be a cause, but I'm unsure currently.

Have you tried any other browsers (both locally installed and flatpak (as an example)) to see if the issue remains the same there? From my recollection, what you're wanting to do should be doable, but I'm not currently at my home pc to check.

EDIT: Flatpak, not snap, my bad

3

The initial release of Zorin OS 17 included Firefox as a Flatpak by default, not a snap.
After Mozilla completed creation of a deb repository or perhaps due to feedback to ZorinGroup, this was changed to a .deb by default in a later update to 17.

1 Like
4

Sorry about that. It's Zorin 17.2 Core. Installed this morning.

No mention of Firefox in the Snap List. I've not had time to try any other browsers. Though I'm not sure if that's the issue. When right-clicking on the downloaded file inside the file browser I'm still not given the choice of any WINE apps.

5

Sorry I meant Flatpak. Technically it's Monday for me so I'm a bit slow right now. I'm not at home right now, but I can check later tonight. How do you have your application installed, through wine on the machine via the wine app support? Or is it through another app (such as bottles or whatnot?).

1 Like
6

Installed via Windows App Support. Also tried using Bottles but that didn't work at all. Not even with the file browser option.

Perhaps should also mention that the application is the 1.72 version of Digital Editions. The older versions seem to play better with WINE. I followed the how-to at WineHQ. Everything works, including Digital Editions recognising my e-reader.

N.B. While I'm sure it's worth looking in to the missing app options in the menus, please don't bust a gut trying to solve this specific issue. At least not for me. I've just discovered the DeASCM calibre plugin which effectively makes the Digital Editions go-between largely redundant.

1 Like
7

At least you have a workaround for now. Well I'm still going to look, mostly just because realistically there should be entries for your wine software to open applications, but I haven't usually checked something like that. I'm typically the guy that goes File->Open in the specific app I'm using.

Regardless, there should be a way to do this, if it's not already implemented.

8

Ok so the way I've done it basically involves the following:

When I install Windows App Support, it also installs bottles. For the purposes of my sanity and keeping my system clean...ish, I'm going to use that for this example. So once you open bottles and install your program in a new bottle, we can then get to work (I installed version 4.5 of ADE without an issue).

Close Bottles.

Bottles that gets installed is a flatpak, and as such we need to allow it to create desktop entries for the program that's installed, which we can do by the following:

flatpak override com.usebottles.bottles --user --filesystem=xdg-data/applications

Once entered, we can open up bottles and go to our newly installed program, and select "Add Desktop Entry".

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This won't actually create an icon (because Gnome funtimes and whatnot) however, the file we need is created in:
/home/yourNameHere/.local/share/applications
The file for ADE in this example is going to be called an easily rememberable:
ADE--DigitalEditions--1727831033.448434.desktop

After that, you should be able to see the option to open an item using the "Open With..." Dialogue
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The current issue I'm facing is getting the file to open properly. It currently brings up an error stating the file name is too long. This makes sense, given it's most likely passing over the full drive letter path since it's not exactly in the same drive. I'm currently looking into that issue.

I was sure that this was how the system would work by default, but maybe i'm on some coocoo pills. Will report back once I figure out the file path too long issue. Unless someone here has an easy solution to that that I can throw into the desktop entry file :wink: