GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 580309
nautilus "open with" property no longer available for folders
Last modified: 2015-07-13 21:36:34 UTC
Please describe the problem: Nautilus "open with" property is no longer available for folders, as of 2.26.1 (ubuntu 9.04) All previous nautilus versions had this property tab so I think this is a bug. I need the "Open With" property tab to be able to delete entries in Nautilus' "Open With" context menu. For example, I use nautilus' context menu to open (associate) a media folder with my music player (audacious), so that the player plays all the music files in that folder. Similarly with photograph folders and so on. With Jaunty, there is no way I can find to remove any of the "Open With" entries in nautilus context menu for Folders. Note that the "Open With" property tab still works fine for regular files; the only problem now is with folders. Please give us back the "Open With" property for folders! Steps to reproduce: 1. open a nautilus window 2. right click on any folder icon and choose properties 3. observe that there is no longer a tab called "Open With" Actual results: there is no longer a tab called "Open With" Expected results: have the "open with" tab so I can remove applications I no longer need or wnat in the context menu list Does this happen every time? yes Other information: I opened a bug in ubuntu/launchpad and I got the comment that this was removed on purpose "because it is no longer needed". This is a wrong assumption, as long as I can use "Open With" with folders in nautilus and add applications to that context menu (which nautilus currently allows), I need a way to remove applications from that list. In the past, this configuration was a bit tricky because it was supposed to allow changing the "default application" to open folders, which in fact never changed (it was always nautilus, as it should be), so it would probably need a folder-specific version so that it only allows to remove entries from the list but does not give the illusion of changing the default app.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/366963
As people already told you on Launchpad, this is intentional, see bug 569668.
Cosimo, this is different from 569668. True that it doesn't make sense to change the default app to open folders, great you removed that, that is not what was asked in this bug. Anyhow users still need to be able to manage the "Open With" context menu list that shows up for folders. Maybe you are not understanding the use case? For example: say I right-click on a folder, then select nautilus' "Open with another application" (which is still available in 2.26) and then by mistake select "Text Editor" (something that happened to me). Now "Text Editor" becomes part of the "Open With" context menu for folders, permanently. There are many other similar usecases, for example in the past I used audacious to open folders with music, now I use banshee and want to remove audacious. Can you shine some light on how a regular user can remove wrong or unwanted entries in the "Open With" context menu for folders? If there is no simple way, can you at least point us to what configuration file to edit to get this done.
reopening the commenter has a point there
It is really unbelievable that you cannot modify the right click open with menu for folders. This is a serious usability regress. Please fix this for the next version of gnome.
If this is not configurable, the configuration must be frozen! Right now, it can be set (by accident somehow) and you can't change it back! I just wanted to report that today I helped a user to reset his/her folder association. Somehow the user's Gnome environment was opening every folder (from panel and places menu) with Find files. For the user there was no recourse but magic (engla is me): 12:26 < engla> if you right-click a folder in nautilus -> properties 12:27 < engla> can you change "open with..." there? 12:28 < engla> it turns out I can't actually change anything there. but at least in previous versions, I could 12:36 < engla> do you have python handy? You can check the type associations there (and eventually reset them too, if they are wrong.) in python: import gio; gio.app_info_get_default_for_type("inode/directory", False) 12:54 < > engla, <gio.unix.DesktopAppInfo at 0xb7bfb0cc: Search for Files or Folders> 13:15 < engla> so you can't change the default association for folders in Properties? 13:15 < engla> in old versions at least I could 13:15 < engla> anyway 13:16 < engla> you need to find nautilus 13:16 < engla> tell me wheter this succeeds: nautilus = gio.unix.DesktopAppInfo("nautilus-browser.desktop") 13:16 < engla> print nautilus 13:17 < engla> then, nautilus.set_as_default_for_type("inode/directory") This solved the issue.
This seems related to when you click on "other application" from the open with submenu. Even though there is a remove button on the window that pops up, it is blanked out. A huge portion of the entries there are dupes or irrelevant.
Yeah, I recently had this same problem, in my case the Places -> any folder was opened by brasero, I couldn't find any gui option to restore that so I had to edit .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list file.
*** Bug 610590 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Why not simply return things to as they were? As I recall, you used to be able to manage these things via an "open with" tab inside of the properties menu. Has anyone heard any news from the gnome team on this issue?
*** Bug 594227 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 601931 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
We don't show the open with menu for folders. Nor do we offer the ability to customize the open with menu.
(In reply to comment #13) > We don't show the open with menu for folders. Nor do we offer the ability to > customize the open with menu. On this Ubuntu 12.04 system running nautilus 3.4.2, the "Open With" is still available for folders. I've not read the whole of this bug, but having the "Open With" for folders is convenient for me because being able to open a folder with a previously specified version control system for some folders is very useful. I don't think the "Open With" option for folders should be removed. The above aside, I'm reopening this bug because the "Open With" option is still available for folders on this updated system. Please close if in fact it is completely gone in a new version. However, I agree with other posters that this option is very useful and would make nautilus less productive to work with.
Closing again. 3.5 is the latest development version.
In 3.16, you can RMB -> "Open With Other Application", then select the unwanted association, RMB -> "Forget Association". To associate an application with opening folder (only from "Places" and stuff like that, not when you click in Nautilus), do RMB -> "Open With Other Application" -> "View All Applications", choose the app you want and "Select" - this will set the new app as the default application for opening folders. Its a shame that this method is so different than how you do it for files, but at least it is somewhat usable.