On 6/2/23 03:03, stan via users wrote: I seem to remember that the method for installing acrobat in Fedora used to be a 3rd party repository I think was provided by Adobe, but I believe Adobe stopped supporting Acrobat in Linux some time ago. The reason I'm using snap is all the hits I found from Google on installing Acrobat in Fedora all said to use snap to do it and provided the relevant snap commands. I also don't know at the moment who supports snap and how. I have no idea if there is any way to get extra debugging information nor do I know how to put Selinux in passive mode, but I would have thought that if it was an Selinux issue that Selinux would have produced a pop-up for the exception with instructions on how to resolve it, like it did for the snap processes when snap was initially installed. Also if it was an Selinux issue I would have thought the process for extracting the attachment from the mail and passing it to Ocular would also fail. One issue might be that the %U parameter specified for Ocular to give it the location of the extracted file may not be the correct parameter for Acrobat. regards, Steve

On 7/2/23 08:45, ToddAndMargo via users wrote: Ocular reads the pdf's as well, but I'm used to using Acrobat under Windows and previous versions of Fedora where I did not have the same issues I am now, and we also use Acrobat at work. regards, Steve

On 2/7/23 22:59, ToddAndMargo via users wrote: Acrobat's sub installe for WIodws is a disaster. You can download the real insaller from: ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/AcrobatDC/2001320064/AcroRdrDC20...

On Thu, 2023-02-09 at 08:29 +1100, Stephen Morris wrote: I wonder if it's one of those things where it doesn't pass on a file path, but one of the weird URLs of mounted/psuedo filesystems. I wonder what would happen if you used a handler in between? A script that Thunderbird passed it to, that passed it to (the not-so- flexible) Acrobat (I couldn't resist that bad pun). In the past, I'd set the handlers for some awkward browsers to use "xdg-open" as their handler. -- uname -rsvp Linux 3.10.0-1160.83.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Jan 25 16:41:43 UTC 2023 x86_64 Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.

On Thu Feb09'23 11:16:04AM, Michael Hennebry wrote: Color me unimpressed with your somewhat-contrived equivalence. We have here a OSS-based-linux distribution mailing list, and there is nothing unusual with us providing equivalent and helpful OSS solutions which we have far more experience with. That is different from asking someone to go buy another computer that hides the problems, and gives the user a false sense of security. What is annoying is the OP ignoring something as simple as a misnamed piece of software, and continuing to use it for whatever reason, even when he claims to have always thought it was something else. Beyond the name, he could have learnt about other software which would have been easier to use, and does not come with all sorts of restrictions. Ranjan

On Tue, 2023-02-07 at 22:59 -0800, ToddAndMargo via users wrote: I use Okular [sic] all the time. poc

On 8/2/23 22:59, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: I could use Ocular as well, but in the past I have found the odd situation where Ocular doesn't display the pdf contents properly and Acrobat does, so I have tended to use Acrobat, and until now I have never had any issues with the Linux implementation. Having said this though, I think up until F36 Acrobat was installed via an installed repository designed for Fedora, it wasn't until F36 that the recommended method for installing Acrobat was Snap, but I also had no situation under F36 where I had a need to open a pdf mail attachment, hence don't know whether the issue I have now has always been there with the snap implementation or has only become an issue with F37. As I mentioned in my reply to Todd, the Ocular association definition specifies a %U parameter to pass in the name and location of the file to display, but that specification doesn't work with Acrobat, so at the moment I don't know whether Acrobat requires a different parameter and if so whether that parameter is supported under Fedora. The other thing I found strange is, I have Thunderbird Daily configured to prompt for download locations, and when I click on the pdf attachment in the mail I get prompted to open it in the default app or save it. In the default app drop down in that dialogue, when the default app was Ocular, if I select "Other" to select a different app, Acrobat does not appear in the list of selectable apps even though it is specified the app list in the pdf application association. So I'm not even sure at the moment if the snap implementation has been done properly or whether there is some other package that I'm missing. regards, Steve

On 9/2/23 09:03, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: Sorry, I thought it was Ocular. regards, Steve

On Thu, 2023-02-09 at 08:52 +1100, Stephen Morris wrote: Is this for some, or all, PDFs? A common problem with dealing with attachments is when they're sent using the wrong mime-type. Files are supposed to be sent with a description of what type of file they are, and the recipient is supposed to act upon that information. It's not supposed to guess from the filename, nor snoop into the file to work it out. PDFs ought to be sent as: application/pdf However some senders may be set up badly, and just use the generic "application/binary-octet" that means some unknown binary file. -- uname -rsvp Linux 3.10.0-1160.83.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Jan 25 16:41:43 UTC 2023 x86_64 Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.

On 9/2/23 20:56, Stephen Morris wrote: I've checked two mails with attachments, one mail has the pdf attachment as content type application/binary-octet and the other has the content type of application/pdf on the attachment and the issue occurs with both of them. regards, Steve

On Thu, 2023-02-09 at 21:05 +1100, Stephen Morris wrote: On that note, it's not a good idea to try and get your program to open PDFs sent as application/binary-octet, because it'll try to do the same thing with any other non-PDF file. Fun and chaos will ensue. You can try setting it to pass the file to xdg-open, and then xdg-open will try opening the file in the right application for what the file is. See if that changes anything. If you allow Thunderbird to directly open the PDF in Okular, can you view properties of the PDF file in Okular, and see where the temporary file is being loaded from? A wild thought: Is it a filename with blank spaces in it? -- NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list. The following system info data is generated fresh for each post: uname -rsvp Linux 6.1.7-100.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jan 18 18:37:43 UTC 2023 x86_64

Just following up on an older thread... Tim: Stephen Morris: xdg-open is a file handler program. Hand it a file, and it'll decide what to do with it based on its own rules (determining the type of file, and the appropriate/preferred application to read it), making it a useful default to handle unknown (application/octet-stream) files from the mail. In your mailer, you'd set it (xdg-open) as the default program for such files, and/or any other files you'd like to palm off to it. So, instead of setting acrobat in the attachment preferences, you'd set xdg-open. Elsewhere, in xdg's settings, you'd tell it what your preferences are for handling PDF files. This stage of configuration, I don't remember the process. Your desktop "preferred applications" configurator may set them for you, or it might just set its own preferred applications. If your mail program "opens" the file, it'll send it to the application configured in your mail program. If you "save" a file, it just gets directly saved to your drive. The advantage of using xdg-open for application/octet-stream attachments is that if you receive a PDF sent that way, xdg-open should (could) use the right reader to view a PDF; if you get sent a JPEG as application/octet-stream, xdg-open should use an image viewer to view the JPEG. Likewise for any other file mis-sent as that generic binary description, it'd analyse the file and open it appropriately. The alternative is that people try setting a PDF reader as the application for application/octet-stream attachments, then things foul up when they receive something other that PDF sent that way. And they will receive various things misidentified that way. Ideally, you should never receive any of the common types of files misidentifed as that generic unknown binary mimetype, they've been known about for decades. I tend to save attached files and open the saved file, I'm not fond of directly opening attachments. I often find that doesn't work as straight-forwardly as you might wish. I would expect any of your applications ought to be able to open any file saved in your name. There could be SELinux implications. Did it save the file with a .pdf suffix, too? That can foul things up. It's 2023, but some applications still have grief dealing with filenames with spaces in it. And there are so many people using computers who never learnt that it can be a problem. "What" has Acrobat set as the default? Thunderbird's setting for handling application/pdf or application/octet-stream? Your desktop's settings? Mimetyping works thus: When someone attaches a file to be sent, their software *should* *correctly* identify the type of file it is in the mimetype header (and in 2023 all programs that weren't written by a fool ought to know what a PDF file is). When you receive such an email, your email program should obey the mimetype header, and nothing else. If the headers says its a PDF file, then it hands it off to a PDF reader, no matter what the file really is. Likewise for JPEGs, if the header says its a JPEG it hands it off to the JPEG reader, even if it's not a JPEG. Et cetera... If an attachment is described as application/octet-stream, it becomes a "not my problem" issue to the mail program. You're expected to deal with it by saving it and sorting it out yourself, or some other aspect of your operating system may handle it (e.g xdg-open). The file is palmed off. Thunderbird isn't told what it is externally, and doesn't then open the file using your PDF viewer configured in Thunderbird. Thunderbird doesn't do anything with that file. But because application/octet-stream is the unknown binary file descriptor, and you may receive *any* type of file, many different types of files, described that way. Some programs may not let you set a default application for it, because doing so is highly likely to cause problems. You're forced to save the file, and deal with it some other way. You may be stuck with this problem. The list of applications to open various types of files in your email program will be based on the mimetype they're described as, not what the files actually are. The real solution is whatever's *WRONGLY* attaching the files needs to be fixed. That's out of your control, and will probably never get fixed, even if you report it to the sender. ----------------------------- The counter-example of ignoring the mimetype descriptors in an email, and letting the system do what it wants was the cause of many exploits in windows email programs: Some jerk would send a dangerous executable file in the mail, and they'd send it deliberately misidentifed as a MIDI file. The windows email program would vaguely look at the header, decide that MIDI files were safe and palm it off to the OS to open the file as it saw fit. The system would determine what the file was, by itself, work out it was an executable, and execute it. That stupid situation existed for many years, it may still do, and Microsoft never did anything to fix up the behaviour in their email client, because they knew better than everyone else (in their own mind, not in reality). Now, if they'd obeyed mime typing and sent the executable exploit file to the MIDI player, it would (should) have rejected the file as unplayable, and no harm would (should) have happened. Users should have had, also, mimetype configuration options in their email program so that actually correctly identified as executable attachments would be disallowed. The world's "dumbest operating system ever" never ceased to amaze me at just how stupidly it was designed, in a plethora of ways, and how they never/rarely learnt from their mistakes.   ---------------------------------- Extrapolating that behaviour to my suggestion of letting an email program palm off all attached files to xdg-open, I find that it refuses to execute any files. Scripts are opened in a text editor, binaries fail with an error message: [tim@fluffy ~]$ xdg-open /usr/bin/ls gio: file:///usr/bin/ls: No application is registered as handling this file But I still manually handle most attachments, especially any difficult ones. -- NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list. The following system info data is generated fresh for each post: uname -rsvp Linux 6.1.7-100.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jan 18 18:37:43 UTC 2023 x86_64

supplemental: I should point out that I don't *use* Thunderbird. I have it installed (the one from Fedora's preinstallation, not a different "daily" one), and can experiment with it, but I use Evolution. Out of all the email clients I've tried on Linux, it's the least-worst. Not the best recommendation, but that's how things evolved (pun intended) Hunting around, I managed to find an email with a misidentified PDF file attachment (as application/octet-stream). Though I couldn't find one with a blank space in the name.   Evolution will open it when clicked on, just the same as a correctly identified one (as application/pdf), in my PDF reader. Or, perhaps I should say that my system (Mate spin of F36) does, Evolution has no obvious mimetype configuration options. Thunderbird will open it when clicked on, within itself. Likewise for correctly identified ones. I only get open, save-as, detach, delete options, no open-with options, on the message reader. If I go into the Thunderbird settings, and change PDF handling to an external reader, it works (correctly and incorrectly identified mimetyped files are opened externally). -- NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list. The following system info data is generated fresh for each post: uname -rsvp Linux 6.1.7-100.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jan 18 18:37:43 UTC 2023 x86_64

On 14/2/23 15:21, Tim via users wrote: I think Thunderbird is the same, I'm using KDE's application/pdf settings to specify Acrobat as the default. Every entry in Thunderbird's "Files & Attachments" table is set to "Always Prompt" (I don't remember whether this was a Thunderbird default or whether I changed them to that). Also, when clicking on an application/octet-stream pdf attachment, if I select other in the prompt, Acrobat does not appear in the list of applications that can be used to open the pdf. Interestingly, for both mimetypes, Chrome and Chromium both appear in the application list, Firefox doesn't because with the way it is installed I would have to add it manually if I wanted to. With the pdf options in Thunderbird set to "Always Prompt" I get a dialogue the shows "Open With",  "Save File" and a check box "Do this automatically for files like this from now on.". The open with entry is a drop down list that contains "Adobe Reader 9 (default)", "Okular" and "Other".  If I click on "Other" it displays a list of "Recommended Applications" which is all the application entries in the application/pdf mimetype list except for the snap installed Acrobat DC entry (it does this for both mimetypes even though  the application/octet-stream list is empty in system settings, incidentally it has only done this for the application/octet-stream since installing the linux version of Acrobat Reader 9.5.5), and a button for "View All Applications" and a button for "Find New Applications". Interestingly, if having clicked on "Other" I then select "Cancel" it changes the displayed name in the drop down to "Okular" instead of "Adobe Reader 9 (default)" which was shown when the dialogue opened. regards, Steve

On 2/6/23 17:16, Samuel Sieb wrote: Thunderbird lets you define where the downloads go. See Edit > Settings > General and scroll down looking for "Save files to". Check it and select/browse to the location you want to save to. ~~R

On 2/6/23 17:33, Richard England wrote: That is the final destination, not the temporary location of scratch paper files.

On 2/6/23 20:32, Richard England wrote: I do not know why you would. Normal users can have at /tmp to the hearts desire

On 7/2/23 12:16, Samuel Sieb wrote: Snapd runs as a socket, so I thought it should be able to access /tmp. I also thought anything in Fedora can access /tmp? regards, Steve