5.2 Terminology

Application. A program as a desktop knows it: something with a title that can be started from a launcher or opened with. In this chapter an application is always what a declaration says, and nothing is an application without one.

Declaration. The file that says what an application is, in the form of §5.3. One file declares one application.

Id. The name of an application: the reverse-DNS string the declaration's file is named for, in the form of an icon identifier (PGSS Icons §4.3). dev.peios.gexora is an id.

Catalogue. The directory holding every declaration on the system, in the form of §5.4. A consumer that wants to know what applications there are reads it.

Program. The file a declaration says to run: an absolute path. The program is what a consumer executes, and what a consumer matches a running process against (§5.5).

Title. What an application is called wherever a consumer shows it to a person.

Listed. Whether a launcher shows the application among what can be started. An application that is not listed is still an application: it can be opened with, and a running one is still named by its declaration.

Media type pattern. Either a media type, image/png, or a top-level type and *, image/*, which stands for every subtype of it. A declaration says what an application opens in these.

Candidate. An application that says it opens a file's media type, and so may open the file (§5.6).

Choice. A media type pattern and the id of the application chosen to open it, kept in the registry by a person for themselves or for the machine as a whole (§5.7).

Default. The application a consumer opens a file with when it picks one: the candidate the choices give the file's type, by the order of §5.7. A type no usable choice is for has no default.

Terms defined in PGSS Icons (identifier, chain, consumer as one who draws) are used with the same meaning and are not redefined, and nor are those of the registry (key, value, REG_SZ, CurrentUser\), which are the Peios Kernel TRM's, or security descriptor, which is PCDS's. Media type is used as RFC 6838 defines it. TOML is the format at toml.io, version 1.0.

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