GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 302035
Add "Make Compressed File..." to Nautilus's File menu
Last modified: 2006-10-22 10:09:17 UTC
Distribution/Version: Ubuntu 5.04 Nautilus lets you make a compressed file from one or more selected items by right-clicking on one of the items you've selected and choosing "Create Archive..." from the shortcut menu. Unfortunately, many (perhaps most) people don't know shortcut menus exist. (HIG: "Since the user may not be aware of their presence, do not provide functions that are only accessible from popup menus unless you are confident that your target users will know how to use popup menus.") Therefore, I suggest adding a "Make Compressed File..." item to Nautilus's "File" menu, available if the current window has a selection. Since archives can be opened by double-clicking, and modified from their own windows, this last step would make the "Archive Manager" item in the Applications menu unnecessary. The word "Make" is chosen to hint at processing, rather than creation from scratch. The words "Compressed File" are chosen to solve bug 300655.
Thank you for your bug report! The propser solution is to make file-roller invoke NautilusMenuProvider for the main menu.
I took a look at it and the problem seems to be that the file actions of extensions appear in the context menu and in the edit menu, not in the file menu. In the file menu, only background actions show up. Should the file actions be moved to the file menu in nautilus or is there a reason to have it in the edit menu only?
All nautilus operations that work on the selection is in the edit menu. I don't understand why you would randomly want to move one to the file menu?
The first reason is that commands that operate on entire files (and folders) usually go in the File menu. In Nautilus this is true for "Open", "Browse Folder", "Open with Other Application", and "Properties". Items in the Edit menu, on the other hand, usually operate on text or on things *inside* a file. File managers that are non-spatial by default, such as Windows Explorer and the Mac OS X Finder, break this rule to let you "Cut", "Copy", and "Paste" files because the presence of toolbars, sidebars etc inside each window makes it too difficult to fit windows alongside each other for easy drag and drop. Nautilus's imitation (and expansion) of this exception seems to be left over from when it was non-spatial by default and designed to be used with a single window. The second reason is that Windows XP Explorer and the Mac OS X Finder both already have a menu item for making a zip file, and in both cases that item is in the "File" menu. And the third reason is that Nautilus's "Edit" menu is scarily long already, even while missing such obvious items as Undo and Redo. I can supply designs to shorten it if you're interested, but that's a separate issue from this bug, and I doubt it would make the menu short enough to accommodate extra items.
Closed without comment by Paolo Bacchilega. Anyone knows why? This would be a great addition to Nautilus, like Windows Explorer's Send To > Compressed Folder.