It's not a bad idea, but it breaks the current system of having directories in the templates directory being used for organizing template trees (e.g. New Document - > Text Documents -> .doc, .txt, etc.) Unless we want to do something specialized, like naming the folders in such a way. 

I'm leaving this open for discussion from others; you should probably forward this idea on to the Nautilus list [1] for discussion there as well. Thanks!

[1]: http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list

I want to state for the record that this feature was available on OS/2 at least as early as 1994. :)

It's an interesting idea, but I have the same concerns as Mr. Walton: How can the user mark a particular folder for being a template, rather than a folder of templates? We need a knob or toggle has to be put.

Reinout: How was it implemented in OS/2?

Idea A:
A content bar (i.e. like the trash bar), that displays
[ X ] Use this folder as template

Idea B:
The context menu has a “Use as Template” toggle button.


Another concern is how the information is stored on disk. If we decide to put a dotfile into $Templates or into the respective subfolders inside $Templates that are used as a template, there should be a freedesktop.org spec.

(In reply to comment #3)
> Reinout: How was it implemented in OS/2?

From memory: each object on the desktop has a checkbox for "Template" in its properties notebook. So do folders. After that checkbox has been checked, a drag action on the template object wouldn't drag the object itself but a new instance of the templated object. It was created at the place where it was dropped. (Dragging the template could be done with a modifier key.)

Interestingly, one could also designate a folder as "work folder" which meant that every document in it was opened and every launcher was started the moment that the folder was opened, and the other way around for closing the folder. Not really template related but I thought it would be nice to mention. =)

Also see http://code.google.com/p/nautilus-folder-template/

GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org.
As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org
which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately
quite limited so not every ticket can get handled).

If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent
and supported software version of Files (nautilus), then please follow
  https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines
and create a new ticket at
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/

Thank you for your understanding and your help.