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Forum Discussion
Telling DB about text files with different file types
I maintain a large collection of notes as text files named *.notes (I use Emacs "outline mode" to edit them). I can't find any way to tell Dropbox that they are text files and therefore it both prev...
Expert-007 wrote:
I maintain a large collection of notes as text files named *.notes ... I can't find any way to tell Dropbox that they are text files and therefore it both preview them and open them in Dropbox Text Editor.
There is no option to do that. You can see a list of the file types that preview as a text file in the following help article:
Rich wrote:
Expert-007 wrote:I maintain a large collection of notes as text files named *.notes ... I can't find any way to tell Dropbox that they are text files and therefore it both preview them and open them in Dropbox Text Editor.
There is no option to do that. You can see a list of the file types that preview as a text file in the following help article:
Why there is no option? A text file is... a text file regardless of its name.
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
mbperezpinilla wrote:A text file is... a text file regardless of its name.
True, a text file is a text file regardless of its name, but not regardless of its file extension, at least according to the system handling the file. A file's extension is what most systems use to determine the file's type so they know how to open/handle the file, and Dropbox doesn't recognize .notes as a valid extension for a text file.
Save the files using one of the extensions that Dropbox will preview as a text file, and Dropbox will be able to handle the files as a text file. If you want them to consider adding .notes as a recognized extension, you can request it here.
Rich wrote:
True, a text file is a text file regardless of its name, but not regardless of its file extension,...The extension is a part of the filename.
... at least according to the system handling the file.In the MS-DOS days, yes. Using the extension to determine the file type is an easy and bad solution.
Adding something equivalent to the file Unix/Linux command (https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/file-command-in-linux-with-examples/) is a good solution.
A file's extension is what most systems use to determine the file's type so they know how to open/handle the file,...Only one example: Firefox can open PDF files regardless of its extension.
But the web version of Dropbox can't open Android contact (text!) files because the extension is vcf.
