GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 325528
Bloated nautilus contextual menu
Last modified: 2009-10-20 15:24:27 UTC
The Nautilus popup menu can become bloated. Other information: This problem has been first submited on gnomefiles.org comments[1] : ---- Context menu bloat By Eugenia (IP: ---.hsd1.ca.comcast.net) - Posted on 2005-09-08 12:52:10 -- Please do not place the actions on the root of the nautilus context menu. This is incosistent with the menu each time, and it adds up bloat. The Actions should have their own sub-menu IMHO. ---- ---- Re: Context menu bloat By GrumZ (IP: ---.embl-grenoble.fr) - Posted on 2005-09-08 14:34:02 --- Yes, you're right, it can became quickly bloated. If we look at the HIG, it say not to add more than 10 items in a popup menu but it also advices not putting submenu. For menu in general, it advices not creating a submenu with less than 3 items. So as a compromise, I can try to create a submenu when there are more than three configured actions for a selection. What do you think ? ---- ---- RE: Context menu bloat By Eugenia (IP: ---.hsd1.ca.comcast.net) - Posted on 2005-09-08 14:35:44 --- No, this is even worse!!! You see, having some actions somtimes on the root and sometimes on submenu is really bad usability as it is not consistent. IMHO, it should always be a submenu, in this particular case. ---- Don't really know what to think about this !? :-/ [1] http://www.gnomefiles.org/comment.php?soft_id=1057#3683
Note: This report has been initially submitted on the old nautilus-actions bug tracker : http://www.grumz.net/node/95
Another comment on Gnomefiles.org from one of the nautilus maintainers postponed the resolution of this issue for at least 6 months : ---- Nautilus submenu support By Christian Neumair (IP: ---.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) - Posted on 2005-09-08 21:02:38 --- Sorry to disappoint you guys, but nautilus extensions (like nautilus-action) don't have any chance to use submenus (yet). It is scheduled [1] for Nautilus 2.14, though. [1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=314579 ----
If I may voice my opinion, I am cardinally opposed to Eugenias' suggestion. Nautilus-Actions is a power-user tool and as such should not force something on the user. What would be best, when subfolders finally become available to extensions, is to let the user build exactly the hierarchy she wishes. She could put all actions into the root menu, create subfolders for the actions or any combination of these. Basically a right-click menu editor. And if that is possible, let user disable built-in nautilus menu commands as well. I'll give you an example - I never use the trashcan and have activated the Delete option in the menu. Now I would like to get rid of the Move to Trash option. In general - a power-user tool should have some nice defaults, but give as many options as possible. Note: Comment originally posted by Anonymous : http://www.grumz.net/node/95#comment-43
Yes, it is a good idea. I thought about this possibility too. For the built-in functions, I don't think that I can interract with them from an extension. If it is effectively not possible (must be verified first), maybe it would be a good idea to report a feature request on nautilus' Bugzilla. BTW, all opinions are welcome until nautilus 2.14 release.
> BTW, all opinions are welcome until nautilus 2.14 release. I'm a little lazy, can you give a link where I can file a feature request for this (allow messing with menu items from extensions)? :) Note: Comment originally posted by Anonymous : http://www.grumz.net/node/95#comment-46
Sorry, I won't because first we have to check if it is possible or not. I'm not sure it is or not, and last time I asked somebody to fill a bug on nautilus bugzilla, the problem was in my code. So please don't fill any request on nautilus bugzilla unless somebody has checked that it is not already possible. thanks in advance
A quick note about this problem. In fact, the 'bloat problem' is not as critical as for example with G-Scripts (AKA nautilus scripts). As they appear in a contextual manner, you can have a hundred configs without having more than three or four items per selection. If you set up good conditions for your configs, you should not have too much bloating in fact. Anyway, as soon as nautilus will give the means to create submenus, we will implement them.
I think the user should decide if she needs to have de Action rigth in the context menu, or a submenu, think of the following (which i actually have) Send via Bluetooth Send via Irda Send by email Send to Trash Send to CD Burner Folder Send to GmailDrive Send to PDA sync folder Send to Backup Hard Disk Send to USB Drive Whe i select a PS file i have additionaly of the above: Convert to PDF Convert to DVI Convert to PS.GZ Convert to DjVu This has already cluttered my menu, if i had the option to create subfolders i would group all of them into two subfolders named just "Send to" and "Convert to". I think Frederic Ruaudel is right: "Nautilus-Actions is a power-user tool and as such should not force something on the user". So give the user the freedom to decide if she wants to group into submenus or if she wants to clutter the context menu. It all up to the users decition, let the users choose. This will get really cool if i had the "Send to" submenu and when i opened that submenu i got all my actions easily recongizable with an icon, bluetooth will have his blue antenna, gmaildrive the G logo, etc. I think Nautilus Actions is one of the coolest features Gnome has ever had, this kind of thing will cause envy to my WinFriends and even my MacFriends. This is really fantastic.
hi, I am trying to define how to implement this. I propose, considering having a new optional entry in an action that would be called "parent". If this entry doesn't exist, we put the action at the root, otherwise we create the "parent" entry in nautilus context menu and append the action in the submenu. How about it ?
Created attachment 104283 [details] [review] Incomplete patch Hello, I have created this patch using the svn trunc source code. I didn't update nact, so you should use gconf-editor to add a "parent" key in the action with the value of the parent menu. But the patch is incomplete. I am not a C++ developer so I didn't manage well the menu system in nautilus-actions.c. So I pass a toplevel menu list in the nautilus_actions_create_menu_item() function and I want to : - first check if the parent menu is in the list and use it to append the new menu - or create a parent menu and append it to the toplevel list. - finally return either the menu or the parent if the menu is not toplevel So TODO : - check if I did well the job explained above - in nautilus_actions_get_file_items append the return result only if it doesn't exist in the list Note that this mod will only work with the patch provided in http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513854, Ubuntu users can use the wattazoum PPA (https://edge.launchpad.net/~wattazoum/+archive) to have a nautilus package that apply that patch I really love nautilus actions and I understand that this software requires a lot of work. I really think that this feature is a must. so please, take time to complete, fix, test and release this patch. Thank you for your work
Hi all I close this point as it is fixed in master, which is to be released on next monday. In this version, you will be able to define menus, and to freely reorder the items inside it ;-) Regards Pierre