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Here are the last 6 months most popular ideas about Nautilus.

Ability to rename a lot of files at once

Written by Jay Nnib the 26 Mar 13 at 09:18. New

I always loved the way in which windows allowed me to rename a lot of files at once. For example, if I select a number of images and, in the right click menu, select rename and type the name like 'family', the images will be renamed as 'family1', 'family2' and so on. But, I miss this feature in ubuntu.

47
votes

14
votes

See the 3 comments or propose a solution >>

Nautilus should support file filtering

Written by Damir Muratagic the 16 Apr 13 at 23:38. New

In handling files I frequently face following problems (it might not be obvious yet but all of them can be solved with filter):

1. If folder contain different types of files (documents, pictures, videos ...), there is no simple way to filter them to show “documents only” or “pictures only”. This feature would be real time saver.

2. If I just want information on what types of files the folder is containing I have to sort by type and scroll down. I would really like to have this information instantly – the moment I open folder.

3. If I select twenty files and want to quickly check one of them I will loose selection and will have to select files again.

4. If I manually search for picture in folder that contain pictures and documents I will change view to Icons, on the other hand if I search for document in the same folder I will change view to List. This requires frequent change of view.

41
votes

Solution #1: Create Filter bar (much more then just a filter)

Written by Damir Muratagic the 16 Apr 13 at 23:38.

All of the problems mentioned above can be solved with filter bar as shown below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/teh1i195ywdq7rt/1%20-%20all%20files.png

Filter bar would simply read content of folder and create categories depending on that content. Only categories for file types that are present in that folder will be shown in filter bar (e.g. if folder contain documents and pictures, filter bar will show: | all files | documents | pictures |)

By default „all files“ are shown. If you want to show only documents for example just click „documents“ item in filter bar as shown below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rmi7bjvlpgcgg68/2%20-%20documents.png

If you want to show files from two or more categories simply click first category and then click check box on other categories you want (as shown below).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kbal47l1g2rgrb/3%20-%20videos%20and%20documents.png

[...]

If you don't want to show all files within category there should be possibility to select types you want from that categories drop down menu.

Another useful feature would be possibility to work with selected files as if they were only files in folder. Each time you select two or more files item “selected” will appear in filter bar (as shown below).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0xjf8j8heerw8c/4%20-%20selection.png

After you selected files you want just click item "selected" and only selected files will be shown (as shown below).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ukrs74j4d19mxg3/5%20-%20selected.png

This option allows you to work with and open selected files without loosing selection. It could also let you to narrow your selection by letting you select within selection.

Each category can have it's default view (thumbnails for images and videos, list for documents etc.

For user who don't need filtering by categories like Documents/Images/Videos..., filter bar could perform other functions, such as: filtering by date modified, filtering by size etc. For folders with only one type of files filter bar could automatically switch to another filtering method.

In short, advantages of filter bar are:

1. Gives you instant information on categories of files the folder is containing (no need to sort and scroll down). If folder contains music you will instantly know it – just take quick look at the filter bar.

2. You can filter files with a single click and quickly switch between different categories.

3. Allows you to work with selected files as if they were only files in folder.

4. Reduces need to switch file view (thumbnails, details etc.) – each file category can have its default view (e.g. thumbnails for images and videos, icons for documents etc.).

5. Reduces/eliminates use of scroll bars – reduced number of files in a pane reduces need for scrolling.

All of the problems mentioned above can be solved with filter bar as shown below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/teh1i195ywdq7rt/1%20-%20all%20files.png

Filter bar would simply read content of folder and create categories depending on that content. Only categories for file types that are present in that folder will be shown in filter bar (e.g. if folder contain documents and pictures, filter bar will show:	| all files | documents | pictures |)

By default „all files“ are shown. If you want to show only documents for example just click „documents“ item in filter bar as shown below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rmi7bjvlpgcgg68/2%20-%20documents.png

If you want to show files from two or more categories simply click first category and then click check box on other categories you want (as shown below).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kbal47l1g2rgrb/3%20-%20videos%20and%20documents.png

If you don't want to show all files within category there should be possibility to select types you want from that categories drop down menu.

Another useful feature would be possibility to work with selected files as if they were only files in folder. Each time you select two or more files item “selected” will appear in filter bar (as shown below).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0xjf8j8heerw8c/4%20-%20selection.png

After you selected files you want just click item "selected" and only selected files will be shown (as shown below).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ukrs74j4d19mxg3/5%20-%20selected.png

This option allows you to work with and open selected files without loosing selection. It could also let you to narrow your selection by letting you select within selection.

Each category can have it's default view (thumbnails for images and videos, list for documents etc.

For user who don't need filtering by categories like Documents/Images/Videos..., filter bar could perform other functions, such as: filtering by date modified, filtering by size etc. For folders with only one type of files filter bar could automatically switch to another filtering method.

In short, advantages of filter bar are:

1. Gives you instant information on categories of files the folder is containing (no need to sort and scroll down). If folder contains music you will instantly know it – just take quick look at the filter bar.

2. You can filter files with a single click and quickly switch between different categories.

3. Allows you to work with selected files as if they were only files in folder.

4. Reduces need to switch file view (thumbnails, details etc.) – each file category can have its default view (e.g. thumbnails for images and videos, icons for documents etc.).

5. Reduces/eliminates use of scroll bars – reduced number of files in a pane reduces need for scrolling.

See the 2 comments or propose a solution >>

Shortcuts and configuration usability reduced

Written by AIXI the 17 Jan 13 at 01:09. New

With the 3.6 version of nautilus the UI get rewamped to be more simply.
This changes made that almost all shortcuts are not displayed on any menu and so if a new user start to use it there is no way that he will learn how to use them.
For an example control+h will make the hidden files to show and in previous versions when you open the menu button to enable it you could see the shortcut that will enable it but there is no such possibility on the new version, now you have to go to the drop-down menu and check the option and go again there to disable every time you want to make it. If you already know the shortcuts they still work but for a new user there is no way to learn them.
This way a new user that need to use the file manager a lot(like many working environments) will have a huge time loss for very simple actions and makes the file manager less usable under heavy use.
I check the help(at least the spanish one) and also there are no references to the shortcuts so the only way to learn them is searching on the net or by using another file manager.

Also the preferences menu only shows with the right click on the status bar icon, this way of open menu is not use in almost any program and almost all people does not know that there is such option. The program itself have a configuration icon but there is no program configuration option in there, only options related to the files. I think that almost all people will search for the option of a program in the program itself and not in the status bar and this also have a big problem and is that if you customize the status bar there is no way to get to the program options. I think that all the actions that nautilus could do should be able to find it on the nautilus main window.

25
votes

Solution #1: Make shortcuts visible again on menus. Add program preferences link

Written by AIXI the 17 Jan 13 at 01:09.

The shortcuts i the dropdown menu should be added and in the help the options that have a shortcut may be added on the head.

Also a shortcut list would be useful on the main help page.

The main preferences also should have a link on the menu that open when you click on the configuration icon, the actual way to enter the preferences will not interfere with this link and it would be a lot easier for almost everyone to found it. Also it will work regardless any extension that could be installed that changes the top menu behavior.

See the 2 comments or propose a solution >>

Command in "Select an application to open" dialog

Written by pyrokinetiq the 9 May 13 at 06:36. New

Currently if you wish to open a file in a program that doesn't display on the "Select an application to open" dialog (right-click a file > Open with > Other Application), you simply can't open that file in your program of choice from nautilus without editing the defaults.list.

20
votes

See the 1 comments or propose a solution >>

To share a file or multiple files from desktop

Written by markodordevic the 29 Apr 13 at 22:50. New

I just tried to share a photo from my desktop to Google+ so I had to go back to the browser and to upload it manually... Simple guess to follow a logic from mobile phones - clicking on a photo opens sharing options - depending on a social network you are signed in.

12
votes

Solution #1: Integrate "share via" button inside of right click menu over the certain item

Written by markodordevic the 29 Apr 13 at 22:50.

Since Ubuntu treats social networks as native apps together with online accounts, it would be useful to extend that feature trough right-click menu.
Right-clicking over selected item or group of items should have option called "Share via..." with submenu that would offer social networks where user is signed in.
Same like the option in the mobile phones. It could help some users.
Regards

0
votes

Add a comment or propose a solution >>

Identify folders quickly

Written by Madhusoodanan the 11 Apr 13 at 15:52. New

I cannot identify folders on the desktop quickly without reading the names. So I cannot guess the important contents in each folder.

6
votes

Solution #1: Change the icon and identify the contents at a glance

Written by Madhusoodanan the 11 Apr 13 at 15:52.

We can set photos as folder Icons. To test it, make a new folder, right click it and hit properties. We can now click the folder icon and we can select any image file. Using GIMP we can give transparency or modify the image that is to be set as folder icon. Resizing icon is also possible. But much effort is needed to make one such good folder Icon. So a short-cut method is needed. A provision for selecting different types of folders (i.e., to change photos into different folder shapes) would be better. Pasting a selected photo on the folder would also be useful. After selecting the photo, another drop-down list for selecting the folder-type would solve all these problems.

2
votes

See the 6 comments or propose a solution >>

Hard to keep track of which files you have used

Written by ave2 the 3 Jan 13 at 20:28. New

I have a number of podcasts, audio book chapters, series etc on my computer, and can never keep track of which ones I have accessed.
Am I on episode 5 or 10. Have I listened to this podcast already, seeing as how I don't always listen to them in order? I know I've listened to 35 out of 40, so how do I find the last five.

5
votes

Solution #1: right click file and mark as used.

Written by ave2 the 3 Jan 13 at 20:28.

When you right click a file/group of files, there is an additional item in the context menu to mark them as used/unused. If you select used, it then places a small check in the top right corner of the file as a visual indicator. This will allow you to quickly see what you have watched/listend to already.

It would also be nice if there was an option to sort the folder by all items not yet used.

(I dont always use my PC to view files. Some I copy over to flash drive to watch on my TV, others I transfer to an MP3 player or phone etc. It's a nightmare keeping track, but also this is why it needs to be implemented in Nautilus and not say Rhythmbox.)

-2
votes

See the 9 comments or propose a solution >>

tag-based file organization/retrieval in nautilus

Written by paolo the 4 Mar 13 at 22:28. New

Let me take a little long way to describe what i want on ubuntu, and why.

Organizing files in a tree-like structure is what people used to do way before the computers. We use to put stuff into boxes, and then boxes into boxes, and so on, according to the content of the stuff, and of the boxes.

Obviously this cathegorization is single, and rigid.
A simple example could be the organization of ebooks into directories.
They could be organized by theme, by language, etc, but normally not by both.

Thanks to computers, and databases, it's now possible to have much more powerful and flexible ways to organize our data. However, using a tag database has been rarely integrated into a file system manager.

Yet the technology is there. xMP is available for a lot of mime types, they can be easily parsed etc.
And they are used, for example by Shotwell, for tagging pictures.
But pictures is only a small subset of the documents we want to organize.
Moreover, images is a file type that probably benefits the least from tagging, since computers allow us to easily browse thumbnails of images, allowing us to understand what is in there. Yet tagging is very useful with pictures!

So imagine with other types of documents! With other types of documents it is not really possible to thumbnail. Pdfs can be thumbnailed, but the thumbnail will probably tell us nothing most of the times. Same applies to videos.

That's why we need tag support into the file manager, for tagging, and searching by tags. And this support shouldn't be scattered in different applications, such as shotwell, or some pdf management tool and so on, but should rather be integrated into the file manager.

4
votes

Solution #1: adding xmp parsing/management functionalities to nautilus

Written by paolo the 4 Mar 13 at 22:28.

Yes, KDE guys came up with the semantic desktop idea. Interesting, in principle. I must say, i am a computer scientist, i bothered to read up the concepts behind nepomuk, to study them up, trying hard to understand them, and yet it feels like a mess. i havent understood it quite, and i bet many others wouldnt, as well. Overengineering , some would call it.

I believe there should be, first and foremost, a much simpler approach: using xmp tags, and building file manager support around them, making it able to read them up, show them in a column, search for them, and keep a sort of database of the tags, for the tagging operations (so that one can tag picking from this set of already used tags)

I've been thinking of a very quick and dirty solution for just tagging files in nautilus, and this could be easily implemented just now.
It consists of two pieces:

- A nautilus extension: one additional column that coud either show, per file: No Tags/ Tagged OR No Tags/ list of tags.
This column would be sortable (of course) so that the "no tags" files could be easily grouped for being processed by the user.

- A little gui application that could be spawned from nautilus for tagging the files.
Being not integrated with Nautilus, this app should keep an own tag database for certain directory trees, and this tag dictionary should be proposed to the user, when he or she is going to tag single/multiple selections of files

[...]

of course this is a very ugly hack to tag files from nautilus, and it would still provide no support for searching by tag (that is, in the end, the whole point of tagging)
So here i want to ask if Ubuntu would like to add this very useful feature in the next version of the OS!
thanks for reading up to here :)

See the 2 comments or propose a solution >>

Removing metadata from shared files

Written by oxym the 23 Apr 13 at 19:44. New

Rationale behind this idea is: usualy on your device you wish to keep different kinds of metadata related to your content (for example exif tags in jpeg ) and make use of them. However when you wish to share your content it might be best to remove sensitive parts of it (metadata).
I know it is possible to prepare a separate copy of the files and to remove the metadata using some script, but having a method to do it automatically would be benefitial, especially on phones and tablets.

4
votes

See the 3 comments or propose a solution >>

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