Nine Things You Should Know About Nautilus 257
lessthan0 writes "The Nautilus program in GNOME is not only the default file manager, it creates and manages the desktop. While it looks simple on the surface, there is a lot of hidden power under the shell. The latest version of Nautilus is 2.14.0, which is included in Fedora Core 5. article covers a few non-obvious things about how Nautilus works."
Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:5, Informative)
I have a lot of iso cdrom images, that I use occasionally - I popped the iso mount script [wordpress.com] in my ~/.gnome/nautilus-scripts & off I went, merilly mounting & using iso files.
I looked for equivilant functionality under windows recently & just couldn't find it - this microsoft app [softwarepatch.com] wouldn't mount (map, whatever you whacky windows guys call it) lots of my isos, rar was nagware (and required you to extract, rather then giving you a virtual drive), nero's expensive, etc etc.
Anyway, back on topic - go download Nautilus scripts from g-script [sourceforge.net] they've got loads of scripts, which solve a lot of problems in a very unixy way. All in all, handy.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:5, Informative)
2. It uninstalls in exactly the same way as every other Windows application - via Add/Remove programs.
3. It creates a virtual CD-drive and mounts the image under each one. You can have up to 4.
4. I've never heard of these rumours, so I can't really comment. I do know I've been using it for the last 4 or 5 years without any spyware, adware, trojans, etc.
I suspect that the rumours of spyware and ad-ware comes from the people who are using it to mount ISO's of games which have had little 'surprises' installed by some distribution site before it's released to the masses clamouring for a pirated copy of Doom4 or some other such shite.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:3, Informative)
They also have one of the most active support forums I've ever seen.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
No - its included by default - you have to opt-out
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Not to get it confused with other notable "opt-out" programs like CD clubs or microsoft error reporting.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the modern users view of their computer. It is full of things that they don't understand, and they'd rather have some authority figure give them the illusion of safety so they can poke around oblivious than be burdened with the necessity to cultivate enough understanding to make intelligent c
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
There isn't anything better out there for free. There isn't anything better out there for pay either, if you want the copy protection emulation.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
That is where you'd be wrong.
Using CD emulation software doesn't make you a pirate. I started using Daemon Tools because I had a Vaio laptop with no CD drive. It was the only way I could game on it. I kept using it when I got my gaming desktop because it's just so damned convienient not to need to swap CDs. My hard dri
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Enough people actually pay for Alcohol to keep them in business though. I doubt many people would pirate games, but then get all altruistic and pay for Alcohol.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Since re-writing Windows to enable removal of running programs is not going to happen, the uninstaller should have aborted at the first failure and rolled back the operation.
Why exclude MS and Apple? (Score:2)
Why exclude MS and Apple? In fact, I'd be more suspicious of software from MS or Apple spying on me since they have intimate access to undocumented holes in the respective operating systems. All other apps trying to "phone home" should be caught by your firewall.
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
1) no it does not. Unless you downloaded it from an unofficial site. (Official site: here [daemon-tools.cc]
Incorrect - see the official site you linked to (try searching for whenu [daemon-tools.cc]
2) use the control panel. I used it for 1 day at work to install Microsoft SDK and it removed cleanly
Oh? The control panel. Thanks for that - I would never have thought of that.
3) Limited by the operating system (IIRC). I kn
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2, Informative)
Nautilus Actions (Score:4, Informative)
I used to think so but then I discovered Nautilus Actions [grumz.net] and things have been a lot better since then. But don't throw away your Nautilus scripts - you can use them with Actions. The beauty of Actions is that it is sensitive to the current selected file/files/directory/directories/mix so that only Actions that are appropriate are visible.
For example, if you have a script to make a thumbnail of one or more JPEGs, then you can set the criteria for Actions to only show you that action for selections of just JPEGs.
Give it a try - it's a really nice feature. Hopefully it will be part of GNOME 2.16.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:Nautilus Actions (Score:2)
I hope it makes it into 2.16 too
Mac OS X: On My Command (Score:2)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
I thought about some of things I wished Nautilus could do, and one of those was being able to edit files
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:3, Insightful)
mount -o loop [ insert variable name of some.iso ]
and then point a file browser at it by iconifying the command. AKA mime types, and default actions. I can do the same thing with Konqueror, Midnight Commander, Rox File Manager, Krusador and more. Yes Windows can't do this. Windows doesn't have by default a loopback mount system. However programs for windows have provi
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:2)
Re:Skip to Eight: Nautilus Scripts (Score:5, Informative)
1) Nautilus is not a distro.
2) All linux distros can mount ISOs out of the box
3) The Nautilus script is a pretty front end to mount, just like OS X (presumably) has a pretty front end to hdiutil (I'm not near a mac machine so I can't check)
4) Thanks for piping up about OS X in a discussion comparing linux to windows! Perhaps you deserve my username [googlepages.com] more then I do?
OS X Image Mounting (Score:3, Insightful)
If you right-click on an image file, you can choose to open it either with the mounting program, or in Disk Copy, or in Adaptec's Toast if you have it installed.
Mod this down! (Score:2)
Meh. Karma can only portioned out by the cosmos.
As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2, Funny)
Exactly!
What are these file explorer / desktop things for, anyway? A shell window with cd, ls, tab completion, and wildcards usually gets me where I want to be faster, and when I want to look at the file tree in a more "browsing" fashion, I use dirmode in EMACS.
Now I'll go back and RTFA, but if anyone who uses the tools I mention switches to using Nautilus (or similar) for some particular task they find eas
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:3, Insightful)
Using a GUI also takes less learning and less mental effort. I'd be intersted to see actual timed comparisons of the two as well, I've read that command line users often think they are being quicker than GUI users, but acutally aren't because of the way the brain senses time.
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is something I don't do very often, and when I do I use FireFox pointing at my html photo album.
I think what an individual's common activites are may have a lot to bear on this. I'm much more likely to search for a text string in a tree of source code than search for a particular
e.g. emacs [M-x grep-find "what I'm looking for"] which runs "find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
The Windows XP Power Toy "Open Command Window Here" does that nicely; downloadable from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/power toys/xppowertoys.mspx [microsoft.com].
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
I use the CLI a lot (currently have 7 terms open), I just don't like to dismiss the GUI so much.
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:3, Informative)
Using a GUI also takes less learning and less mental effort. I'd be intersted to see actual timed comparisons of the two as well, I've read that command line users often think they are being quicker than GUI users, but acutally aren't because of the way the brain senses time
I hope you don't really believe such BS.
Because you chose one specific application that is faster with a GUI does not mean what you say after t
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
The GP was apparently only talking about situations using cd, ls etc. I wish I could find the report I read about the command line vs GUI timings.
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everything done through the GUI has to be 100% visual. That's the whole point to combining the metaphors via nautilus scripting and actions, for example.
The point is that when working THROUGH a GUI, you can choose to use a command-line or not as you go, and for the most appropriate jobs.
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
http://www.greenfly.org/rename [greenfly.org]
Re:As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:2)
A gui is faster for some items, but a commandline is faster for most tasks. With KDE I usually create a transparent Konsole window the half the size of the desktop for running those commands. With OS X I have a hotkey toggling iTerm to either open or close a terminal window.
Re: As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:3, Funny)
There are plenty of applications you can use to browse your pjorn. You don't need something that poops all over your desktop.
Re: As a long-time GNOME user... (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on what you do. If you only do one thing with your computer, all you need is a power switch. If you're a power user you probably find a command line more effective than a GUI. On those rare occasions that I use Windows I'm often annoyed by having to click through a dozen menus, tabs, and pop-ups to reach something that I can get within half a second by typing a few characters on my shell command line.
Also, most CLIs are Turing compl
Trash Dot (Score:5, Funny)
The ~/.Trash directory is where files are moved if you delete local files. On mounted volumes, Nautilus will create a hidden
So will
Next gen file manager (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Next gen file manager (Score:3, Informative)
1) It's nowhere near as functional or customiseable as nautilus...yet
2) It's in quite early development and only ships with XFCE 4.4 beta at the moment, so isn't really the official current file manager
3) It's very promising.
I'm currently using Xfce 4.2.x (the current release xfce) after having a bad experience with the 4.4 beta but I have the Gnome suite installed and using Nautilus for my desktop and file manager.
Nautilus is quite heavy and uses a hefty volume of RAM,
One good tip. (Score:2, Interesting)
The nautilus-scripts thing is useful however. There is a script to upload photos to flickr at http://nozell.com/blog/archives/2004/09/04/flickr- upload-for-gnomes-nautilus/ [nozell.com] though the progress bar doesn't update right. I also made some shell scripts that resize images using 'convert' from ImageMagick to thumbnail size and webpage size (e.g. max 700 px wide).
One thing it shows though is that there is still a lot of confusing inconsistency on where Gnome-related app
Knowledge is Always a Good Thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Knowledge is Always a Good Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Yakuake [kde-apps.org] is even better. Konsole in a Quake-like terminal that pops open when you hit F12. I always used one of my desktop for Konsole-only and was constantly switching between the different desktops. Yakuake is much better =)
The thing Gnome should learn from KDE is more flexibility. When using Gnome I constantly run into walls when I try to do something in a way Gnome
Please let TFA say (Score:2)
Re:Please let TFA say (Score:2)
Tabs would provide additional choice and hence complexity, which would make Gnome users feel scared and helpless. Hence, like an address bar, they must be shunned in Nautilus.
Having lived with an ever decreasing feature set and usability in Nautilus, and Gnome in general since FC2, I can safely say that when FC6 rolls around, I'm switching my desktop to KDE. Because if I stick with gnome in FC6, I literally won't be able to swi
Re:Please let TFA say (Score:2)
Any Gnome devels reading, please explain why we can't have an address bar and tabs in Nautilus!
I use gnome, but I hate nautilus (Score:2, Interesting)
My apologies if this is incorrect, but I believe nautilus is responsible for the disgustingly *bad* interface that pops up when you run firefox under gnome and want to choose an application to open something with. I can't just type in a command and hit ent
Re:I use gnome, but I hate nautilus (Score:2)
Re:I use gnome, but I hate nautilus (Score:2)
I don't care so much that gnome hides some basic features behind a hotkey, but a lot just don't seem to be there at all.
And both still lack support for virtual folders or any kind of "narrowing search" feature. People spend a lot of time in file pickers. Make 'em
Re:I use gnome, but I hate nautilus (Score:4, Informative)
Yup, you're incorrect. That's the GTK2 file dialog, not Nautilus. They look similar because they're both GNOMEish, but the file dialog isn't actually a part of Nautilus. Oh, and you *can* type in a path... did you try to just start typing? As soon as you hit that first
Re:I use gnome, but I hate nautilus (Score:3, Insightful)
Genius. Sheer genius. Provide a textbox address bar functionality, but make it invisible until the user decides to type an address. Because, you know, users will be able to psychically sense its presence and decide to start typing, rather than just assuming it hasn't been implemented.
Whoever is in charge of UI at Gnome is obviously a double agent engaged in sabotage. Either that or to
Re:I use gnome, but I hate nautilus (Score:2)
Hiding the desktop (Score:3, Informative)
Launch GConf (gconf-editor on the Dapper command line), navigate to
This is especially useful if you connect to a Linux box using XDMCP from a machine using a rootless X server. I use Cygwin/X in rootless mode, and this switch means that bringing a Linux application to the top doesn't cause the root window (i.e. the Linux desktop) to be drawn, obscuring the Windows applications behind.
.trash (Score:2)
Well, SBM never seems to fail (Score:2, Informative)
Anyone actually use emblems or notes? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does anyone actually use these?
Four things would make them actually useful:
1. The fact that it only displays one emblem in list view mode is unfortunate -- if in list view there was a column for each emblem (or a "subcolumn" for an "emblems" main column), which you could use as a sort criteria, then you could very easily find files with certain emblems.
2. Automatic and dynamic emblems based on combinations of things like current age, original directory of creation, current directory, file type, size, patte
Re:Anyone actually use emblems or notes? (Score:2)
You probably have other ideas about how you would do it, but in the social context of the organisation I did it for, it works, its accepted, and lots of other neater solutions would not be. Its accepted, the simple rule is, if an
changing application - file binding (Score:2)
One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:4, Insightful)
1 The whole Spatial browsing idea. Yes you can turn it off (The is the first thing I do when I come across it) but it's a rotten idea. You can tell it's a rotten idea from the recent introduction of the "expanding folders" paradigm which is attempting to return "left hand " tree view functionality into the "single pane" spatial paradigm. Spatial browsing should have been left with the early MACs and the Atari, Amiga etc.
2 Poor keyboard support. My main gripe with Nautilus is that you can't navigate by pressing a key to "walk round objects whose name starts with a letter" as you can in Konqueror, Windows Explorer etc. etc. For me this makes finding files a complete pain in the arse. It's such basic obvious, useful functionality I can't believe it's missing.
3 Poor right mouse button support. Select some files and try to right click so you can select the "copy" option from the context menu. You can't. As soon as you right click then your current selection is discarded and the item nearest the mouse pointer is selected. This also has the added effect of changing the right click context menu. Great.
4 Similarly when you've got several files/directories on the clipboard and you want to paste them into a folder with a mouse click you can't. The right click once again selects an item etc. etc.
Personally I find Nautilus to be the single biggest impediment to me using Linux as my primary O/S. I run Ubuntu and for some reason Konqueror doesn't look quite right. But Nautilus sucks... it's as if the developers have never used a computer with a fully functional file manager.
And yes I have tried raising the issues on Bugzilla but my impression is that the Gnome developers aren't interested in adding functionality. They only seem to be interested in simplifying things as much as possible ("Oh that might be difficult for some users to use so we're not adding it...")
But in the time honoured tradition of open source I've given up on Nautilus and have started writing my own file manager using Mono (not being a proficient C# coder it'll take me a while) It'll probably be pretty crappy in general but it'll at least allow me to perform my file management in a sensible way.
On day the Gnome desktop will have been reduced to a single button and then you'll be happy
Ho hum, c'est la Vie.
Re:One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:2)
I recently installed Kubuntu and found it necessary to install the kdeartwork-theme-icon package and switch my icons to the "kde classic" theme. Much better looking, IMHO, than the default that Kubuntu uses.
Re:One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:5, Informative)
So turn it off!
2 Poor keyboard support. My main gripe with Nautilus is that you can't navigate by pressing a key to "walk round objects whose name starts with a letter" as you can in Konqueror, Windows Explorer etc. etc.
Umm - it works for me with GNOME 2.14. Pretty much everywhere too. If the backdrop has the focus, then I can choose items on the backdrop. If a filer window has the focus - yep - works there too. If I want to switch from window to window - Alt-Tab. If I want to switch from window to desktop, Ctl-Alt-Tab. If I'm in a loading dialogue, yes. If I'm in a save dialogue - it still works there too. Completion works too in those load/save scenarios - just hit Tab. I rarely take my hands off the keyboard - it's an essential feature for me.
3 Poor right mouse button support. Select some files and try to right click so you can select the "copy" option from the context menu. You can't.
Right click applies to the object you click on. So if you select a group of files and right-click on something else, you get the Context menu for that object. If however you select a group of files and right-click on *any* member of that group, you get the Context menu for that group. It's not that hard.
4 Similarly when you've got several files/directories on the clipboard and you want to paste them into a folder with a mouse click you can't. The right click once again selects an item etc. etc.
I thought you wanted to use the keyboard? Try select the group of files, Ctl-C, open the directory you want to paste things into, Ctl-V. Easy. Or you could have selected the group of files, right-click and choose cut or copy. Open the new location and right-click->Paste.
I used to be a hardened command line user. These days, using GNOME, I find myself using the Nautilus interface more and more. Along with Nautilus Actions, it allows me to get what I need done, quickly and easily.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:2)
* It doesn't suck like the Windows 95 one.
* It works pretty well. In fact, when I'm in Windows I'm having trouble navigating around because I can't easily open a new Explorer window like I can in Nautilus.
2. Huh? Type-ahead-find has been implemented in Nautilus for as long as I can remember. I use Nautilus 2.10 and type-ahead-find works just fine.
3. What version of Nautil
Re:One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:3, Informative)
4. What are you talking about? It works fine here.
I did some experimenting and it seems that his problem is that he's extremely inaccurate with his mouse. If you select a group of files and then right click on some other file not in the selected group then it cancels the selection, selects the file you r
Re:One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:3, Informative)
I guess you must be using some strange ancient version or something. I have tried some of the stuff you said and the results where not quite like what you described:
So what? You can turn it off, period. Some people like it.
Re:One thing I know about Nautilus. (Score:3, Informative)
Install ROX [sourceforge.net]: intuitive, lightweight, and lightening fast. It works under any window manager.
Phillip.
Everything's non-obvious in computing... (Score:2)
A little RTFM and Nautilus is your friend (Score:2)
KDE on the other hand was unstable no matter what until recently (at which point xcompmgr also became stable and so did transparency and shadow effects for some
offtopic - installing linux on firewire drive (Score:2)
My question is this, are there currently any distros that can install and boot from an external firewire drive without having to monkey around with RAM disks, etc.? I don't have the space on my internal drive to sacrifice so
Re:offtopic - installing linux on firewire drive (Score:2)
Nautilus may not be for you all (Score:2)
I don't know that its a lot better than Konqueror in this respect, but if all they are doing is finding their files, and doing Office type
Man... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I said it before and I'll say it again (Score:2)
"Nautilus has something of a colorful past. It was created by a company called Eazel, staffed by ex-Apple programmers that wanted to bring ease of use to the Linux desktop."
I have a touch of old-fogeyism in me, and wish that Linux's file system GUI management tools were all standardized and work as simply as My Computer/Explorer do. But the horrible XP search can be replaced with anything
Re:Kan it run in KDE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:bah (Score:3, Insightful)
I would rather complain about the increasingly frequent Slashdot dupes and karma-pumping tabloid stories than these articles (al
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:2)
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:2)
The address bar being gone by default from Nautilus and the file dialogs is also infuriating. Wh
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:2)
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:2)
I agree in that Konqueror is likely more powerful than Nautilus, however, I very rarely find the need to use many of Konqueror's features, despite being quite a heavy computer user/programmer - most just confuse me or distract me. For anything that requires ungodly amounts of file operatio
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:3, Insightful)
But I don't think it's as well integrated as kio-slaves. Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember that in one of the Gnome 2.14 new-features articles we had on /. they mentioned that gedit now supports opening ftp etc like local files.
This implies that Gnome-VFS has to be integrated seper
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's very simple to do and aside from that, GTK can be fully integrated with GNOME-VFS, but it actually requires, like kioslaves, that you don't use stdio. A significant number of ap
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:GNOME is dead to me and Nautilus is the reason. (Score:2)
Really, I did love GNOME. I felt like KDE was too bloated, GNOME seemed faster, didn't load me down with stuff I'd never use. And KDE frankly was the gayest looking thing I'd ever seen with it's old default "Keramik" theme and putrid default colors. Thankfully somebody recognized this, and you ma
Re:Thank you! (Score:2)
Re:10 (Score:3)
Re:nautilus-actions [same exists for KDE] (Score:2)
For example, adding a context-menu option to rotate images involves nothing more than writing a
Re:Oh I'm well aware (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:9 things? (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, fellow Slashdotter. That's:
Remember, pardner: anonymous dicts are your friends. And way more 1337.
Re:9 things? (Score:2)
Re:Desktop Community Support? (Score:2)
Re:The new nautilus (Score:3, Informative)
Lies. All Lies.
I've used Nautilus for about two years now. I can safely say it is slow. Not as slow as explorer, but slow. If takes its sweet time loading up previews of media files, or even listing a large directory. I can't count the number of times it has taken about 30 seconds to relist my home directory for no apparent reason.
All the while you're left with a lurching and wheeling file list as newly done previews, files o
Re:People actually use Nautilus? (Score:2)
In essence the issue is direction of information flow. If y
Re:People actually use Nautilus? (Score:2)
When you are trying to bring order to a directory, the right tool is a file management software, not an image management SW. With either Nautilus or Konqueror I can see instantly "hey, what is that text file doing among my pictures? Let me click on it and see what it contains". Or try to move /home/userid/sources/download/debian/libparportled _0.5.1.orig.tar.bz2 to /opt/sources/drivers/hardware/ports/parallel quicker in a CLI than in either Nautilus or Konqueror.
As you said, "The
Re:People actually use Nautilus? (Score:2)
I think it's riddilin.
CLI should be something like
Re:People actually use Nautilus? (Score:2)
I got: Display all 247 possibilities? (y or n)
For *small* directories, when you remember exactly the name of the file, then, well, yes, a CLI can be quite fast, if you use the tab key. But what if you thought the file name was parportled, instead of libparportled? "find sources/donwload/debian -name '*parport*'" anyone? How is that quicker than taking a look at the whole directory at once?
Re:number 10 (Score:2)
11) it hasn't
12) so is every other file manager of equal functionality
13) we do
14) thats one of the things it can do yes
15) so change them you lazy scrote
17) so does your post
18) opposite ends of the spectrum?