In web browsers such as Epiphany, you can right-click on a link, choose "Copy
Link Address", and copy the URL for that link to the clipboard.

I request a new feature in Nautilus, in the right-click menu, "Copy Link
Address".  This would copy a URL for that file to the clipboard.  So, if I have
a server mounted as /mnt/foo, and it had a file called bar.txt, if I perform
"Copy Link Address" I would get "file:///mnt/foo/bar.txt" in the clipboard.

I often find myself wishing to include a pointer to a particular file in an
email message.  This would be useful anytime you are sending email to another
person who can access the same server.  It would also be useful in a multi-user
scenario, to send email to another user on the same server with a file pointer
in it.

When a user has a file link URL in the clipboard, the right-click in Nautilus
should offer "Paste Link" as well as "Save Link" (or maybe call it "Save Link
As" or "Copy Linked File").  "Paste Link" should create a symlink.  "Save Link"
should copy the file to the current directory.

I would also like, when the user has a file link URL in the clipboard, for the
right-click menu in Nautilus to offer "Open Link Folder".  This would open a
Nautilus window to the directory containing the linked file.

If the URL is for a directory, only offer "Open Link Folder" and not "Paste
Link" or "Save Link".

I am not sure, but it might also be good if server URLs were normalized into
universal form.  If the server foo has file bar.txt shared out on an SMB share
called "public", maybe the file URL should be "smb://foo/public/bar.txt" (sorry
if I got the syntax wrong for an SMB URL).  That way, if one user mounts that
server at /mnt/foo, and a second user mounts it at /mnt/server/foo, the link
will still work.  This might be overly tricky and not worth it.

Thanks for working on GNOME.