GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 63128
Some default actions would be a nice thing to have
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
When you copy files in folder it would be of much useability if you would allow some Action (.action) script. If there exists this file Nautilus would execute these files trough this action. Like lpr command. I know you have scripts folder but it needs an experienced user to use it. My way administrator could just change icon on network folder put action on it and pop. ACTIVE FOLDER. This would allow you not to worry about burning CD-s, installing fonts, process files, converting files, sending over network, compressing, decompressing, trough interface, You just wait with some process dialog for command to finish. Sometimes in future it would be nice to put this in some nice script collector and chooser. User just selects action. If global actions would be collected, programs could support standard and set actions inside. It would allow nautilus not to get bigger, but smaller and faster. This is something we'd all want. And some other thing hope it will access the right person. I don't really know who to address for. Enable some User action menu. User could put there let's say LinNeighborhood and, whoa here we have chooser like on mac. There are many applications which could be usefully imported in nautilus. This would speed up development.
What if the folder is for instance removable media. It won't HAVE a .actions folder even though we might want a specific action. This wouldn't help us burn CDs via drag n' drop. How about this being stored some other place? /etc/nautilus/actions and $HOME/.nautilus/actions.
.desktop files can achieve this functionality already. In fact, this does it better, because they won't copy or move a file to the directory you don't really care about, and it doesn't conflate the concepts of 'directory' and 'application' .desktop files only execute a script/program on the files dropped onto the .desktop icon (although they can have other functionality as well). For example, I have a file on my desktop called junksorter.desktop with the following contents: [Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=Junk Sorter Exec=/home/me/.gnome/nautilus-scripts/junksorter Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/gnome.png Whenever I drag a file onto this .desktop icon, it runs the script junksorter, which sends the file to the best location. Similarly, you could specify a different script (e.g., lpr) that does exactly what you want. The bug reporter's wish for a way to easily create and edit may still be valid, but probably is not a Nautilus bug.
As the last comment pointed out, much of this can be done with desktop files. Additionally, there is now a way to create additional right-click menus which work based on mime-types. So I'm closing this, since most of the functionality is already there. If there is something that these two features don't cover, please reopen. Thanks.