Dolphin Open With Menu Fix

This Nix overlay fixes Dolphin's "Open with" menu when running outside of KDE (e.g., under Hyprland or other Wayland compositors).

Issues Resolved

1. Missing Menu Configuration

• Dolphin relies on KDE's KService framework to populate its "Open with" menu
• Without KDE, the menu configuration file (applications.menu) is not found
• This overlay sets the correct XDG_CONFIG_DIRS to include the Qt5 KService which does include the applications.menu

2. Stale Service Cache

• Dolphin uses KDE's service cache (ksycoca) to find available applications
• Without KDE, the cache is not properly built or updated
• This overlay runs kbuildsycoca6 --noincremental before Dolphin starts to ensure the cache is up-to-date with the correct menu configuration by using the Qt5 KService resources

Usage

1. Choose one of the following methods to add the overlay:

Option A: Using Flakes

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs";
    dolphin-overlay.url = "github:rumboon/dolphin-overlay";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, dolphin-overlay, ... }: {
    nixosConfigurations.your-host = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      modules = [
        {
          nixpkgs.overlays = [ dolphin-overlay.overlays.default ];
        }
      ];
    };
  };
}

Option B: Without Flakes

Clone this repository and add to your NixOS configuration:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    (import /path/to/dolphin-overlay/default.nix)
  ];
}

2. Rebuild your system:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

How It Works

The overlay modifies the Dolphin package by:

1. Setting the correct XDG_CONFIG_DIRS environment variable
2. Rebuilding the KDE service cache before launching Dolphin

This approach is non-intrusive as it only affects the dolphin package and does not modify global environment variables or system-wide configurations.

Benefits

• Properly populated "Open with" menu in Dolphin
• Works without a full KDE installation
• No global environment modifications
• Automatic cache rebuilding on launch