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Bug 652367 - Up button missing in Gnome 3 Nautilus
Up button missing in Gnome 3 Nautilus
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: Navigation
3.0.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
: 654019 660072 681421 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2011-06-11 19:03 UTC by Torsten Römer
Modified: 2013-01-28 14:26 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Torsten Römer 2011-06-11 19:03:53 UTC
There is no "up" button in Gnome 3 Nautilus by default, and there does not seem to be a way to enable it. Or did I miss something?

One can do Alt-Up but I think it is inconvenient to use the keyboard while browsing the filesystem with the mouse.

I am now using Thunar instead - it has an "up" button.
Comment 1 André Klapper 2011-06-13 20:05:19 UTC
Isn't there the breadcrumb design available for exactly this functionality, so you can still go one (or several) levels up by clicking only once?
Comment 2 Torsten Römer 2011-06-13 20:54:55 UTC
I don't have this breadcrumb thing, but the "Place" bar where it is possible to type in the location, which is way more useful.

The breadcrumb isn't a good replacement for an "up" button anyway I think, and I certainly wouldn't trade in the "Place" bar for it.

The "up" button is one of the most elementary functions in a file browser, I am surprised it is missing in Nautilus.
Comment 3 Cosimo Cecchi 2011-06-13 21:03:08 UTC
Yes, this is by design. Having both Back and Up seems confusing and redundant, since Back is what you want most of the time. Also, the pathbar allow you to navigate up with a better visual clue than just the button.

Note that you can still do 'Go -> Open Parent' if you don't want to use the keyboard for it.
Comment 4 Torsten Römer 2011-06-13 21:28:59 UTC
I never use the "back" button - I want to navigate the filesystem hierarchy, and not surf it.

'Go -> Open Parent' is two mouse strokes and two clicks instead of one each. When going many levels up, it is just as many clicks on the "up" button - with 'Go -> Open Parent' it becomes tedious and annoying.

As mentioned, Thunar still has an "up" button, which, as far as I remember, is disabled by default but can still be enabled by those who want it.
This is IMHO the way to do it, and not just removing basic functionality entirely.

I might be old fashioned, but a file browser without an "up" button is missing an essential feature and I don't want to use it.
Comment 5 André Klapper 2011-08-18 15:03:38 UTC
*** Bug 654019 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 André Klapper 2011-10-02 12:39:53 UTC
*** Bug 660072 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 gunwald 2011-10-23 13:10:34 UTC
Well, I think a file browser without an up-button is not a file browser. I am now using tunar too. I hardly can remember any situation in which I wanted to browse my file browsers history with a back or forward button. Is there anybody out there using this?
And yes, all that years I used GNOME I was always so confused that there was a back and an up button. Sometimes it took me about half a day to decide which one to click. Thank you design team to making the world so easy for me! Did you think about to remove north and south too? I mean we would have still west an east and I am always so confused which way to go!
Comment 8 André Klapper 2012-07-13 11:08:23 UTC
*** Bug 679822 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Tobias Wolf 2012-07-17 16:25:23 UTC
And I don’t understand why Backspace was removed. This was a one key shortcut that made sense even for people coming from Windows.
Comment 10 André Klapper 2012-08-08 10:04:02 UTC
*** Bug 681421 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Clint 2012-08-08 18:56:07 UTC
Since this is marked not a bug, how can we users go about getting the up button restored to Nautilus?

If the Gnome team is unwilling to do that, are there any workarounds to restore the up button?  To those using Thunar, can you link to any tutorials showing how to make Thunar the default file manager on and Ubuntu or Debian system?  

People googling this problem may find this bug, which suggests it would be a useful place to collect information on how to fix this problem.
Comment 12 James 2013-01-28 07:01:55 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> Since this is marked not a bug, how can we users go about getting the up button
> restored to Nautilus?
> 
> If the Gnome team is unwilling to do that, are there any workarounds to restore
> the up button?  To those using Thunar, can you link to any tutorials showing
> how to make Thunar the default file manager on and Ubuntu or Debian system?  
> 
> People googling this problem may find this bug, which suggests it would be a
> useful place to collect information on how to fix this problem.

Hi,

I have found out that adding:

(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/ShellActions/Up" "BackSpace")

to ~/.config/nautilus/accels adds the backspace shortcut back to Nautilus.

This doesn't add back the button, which is a different issue, but maybe this will be an intermediate workaround, and in the interim you can use the breadcrumbs? Certain breadcrumb entries (like being in the home directory) don't offer you the ability to go "up", so in these case you have to press backspace.
Comment 13 gunwald 2013-01-28 14:18:48 UTC
Forget about Nautilus, it is dying. Use Nemo instead, the fork of Nautilus developed by the cinnamon team. It is as good as Nautilus was, it is getting better every day: If you are using Ubuntu you can install it via this PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nemo
Comment 14 James 2013-01-28 14:26:15 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Forget about Nautilus, it is dying. Use Nemo instead, the fork of Nautilus
> developed by the cinnamon team. It is as good as Nautilus was, it is getting
> better every day: If you are using Ubuntu you can install it via this PPA:
> 
> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
> sudo apt-get update
> sudo apt-get install nemo

(I'm actually using Fedora...) and I have installed nemo as a workaround for the missing split "extra pane" view, although I am still a big supporter of GNOME and I think nautilus is going through a transition period, which is probably positive overall for GNOME, but difficult to use exactly how I am used to at the moment. I look forward to it coming out very functional. On the other hand, nemo is still missing some extensions in the latest F18 packages, such as file-roller and seahorse, but I'm sure they will come out soon.

In other news, I'm actually allergic to cinnamon, so I'm a little put off by the badly chosen project name ;P