I noticed that 3 of my Desktop icons disappeared using Gnome.
When I right clicked on the applications selecting "add this launcher to desktop" option I get Desktop icons ending in *.desktop. Instead of running the application when double clicked the file is opened in a text editor.

I'm using Fedora 5 by the way.

When I click on the Computer icon all of the icons end in *.desktop and I get nautilus error message can't open file.

I believe it has to do with file association or MIME types.

If I right click and get option to "open with other application"
which one do I choose?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Is nautilus desktop launcher the application to open with *.desktop files?
I believe I just need to associate *.desktop files with some particular application.

For example when I right click the Googleearth.desktop icon and choose the "open with other application" option the "Open with" dialog box says the following "Open googleearth.desktop and other files of type 'Unkown' with:."

There is also the option to use a custom command in the dialog box. Although I just don't know what application to type there either.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

Is there a program to change file types and programs in Fedora 5.
I still have Redhat 9 on another computer and it has a "File Types and Programs" utility where you can add or edit a file type for a particular program. It has the .desktop file extension associated with a gnome application launcher.

Any ideas.