Default editor in GNOME

Here's a quick tip: you can change the default text editor in GNOME (and likely any Free Desktop) by creating a defaults.list file in ~/.local/share/applications/.

I'm using Emacsclient through a bash script taken from MJ Wall. After creating an ec.desktop file, where /my-user-name/ is obviously my user name:

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Utility;TextEditor
Comment=Edit files with the ec command
Exec=/home/my-user-name/.emacs.d/ec %f
Icon=/home/my-user-name/img/emacs.png
MimeType=text/plain
Name=ec
Type=Application

I created a defaults.list file containing:

[Default Applications]
text/plain=ec.desktop

And voila! Sure beats having to specify the default editor for every file type!