GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 40548
Change permissions on multiple files/folders at once
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
We'd like a mechanism for changing permissions on multiple files & folders at once, so the user doesn't have to muck with a whole bunch of Properties windows separately. This could be a special dialog, or some mode where a single Properties window applies to multiple files, or ... ? ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2000-04-20 10:54:11 ---- One possibility here is to have a "Change Permissions..." menu item in the File menu. If a single file is selected, it brings up that file's Properties window with the Permissions part (tab?) showing. If multiple files are selected, it brings up a special "multi-file permissions window" that looks pretty similar to the Permissions part of a Properties window but handles multiple files at once. ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2000-05-01 10:21:14 ---- All of these seem desirable, but deferrable (in my overrulable opinion). ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2000-09-08 15:26:36 ---- Setting all bugs to P6 to start official bug-prioritization plan. Please don't set the priority to anything other than P6 unless you've got the gold seal of approval for doing so. ------- Additional Comments From eli@eazel.com 2000-10-16 20:07:24 ---- Batch-assigning QA ownership of remaining bugs to eli@eazel.com ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2000-12-04 08:57:02 ---- *** Bug 44928 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** ------- Additional Comments From eli@eazel.com 2001-02-21 11:12:52 ---- QA Assigning to brett. Sorry for the spam. ------- Additional Comments From eli@eazel.com 2001-03-26 11:11:30 ---- QA Assigning to self. ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2001-03-26 11:15:19 ---- *** Bug 47812 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2001-03-26 11:15:52 ---- Note that bug 47812 has some more discussion about this. ------- Additional Comments From bfrantzda@hmc.edu 2001-04-09 16:41:00 ---- Along these lines, it's often nice to see the group properties of a set of files. For example, to select a bunch of files and/or folders and look at the properties dialog to see their combined size. This is how windows handles it. Perhaps clicking on ``properties'' for multiple files could pop up a dialog: +---------------------------------------------------+ |Do you want to open x seperate properties dialogs? | | | | [Open x dialogs] [open 1 group dialog] [cancel] | +---------------------------------------------------+ This would be similar to the dialog you get when you select many items and hitting enter. ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2001-09-09 20:56 -------
I would like to vote for this bug/add comments so people look at it again... I just used nautilus to copy a bunch of files off of a CD. Of course, none of these files have write permission after copying them, and I'd like to have that. In short, I need to chmod -R ug+w *, but nautilus only lets me do one file at a time. See this screenshot: http://runic.whitecape.org/sometimes-a-gui-is-not-easier-to-use.jpg That's 11 files, plus the folder, leaving 12. And that's just Disc 1; I also have Disc 2, 3, 4, and 5 to do. The process is currently this: (1) open all five folders (2) select all the files (3) right click, ->Properties (4) say "Yes, I really want to open that many windows" (5) switch to the permissions tab in each (6) click [X] Write two times per window (owner, group) (7) click close/[X] in each window This is ridiculously long. Noone is realistically going to use nautilus to do this, as it stands. It's also very error prone, because once I start doing something 50 times in a GUI, I tend to get "click-happy", and set Other: Writable, as well. Definately didn't want that. I suggest upping this bug to High priority. This is one example of where using nautilus to manage files is simply a lot more trouble than it's worth. If I were a new user, I would probably ask someone at this point (and be referred to either a file manager that can do what I need, or a chmod command) - I would not manually change permissions for 50 files using nautilus unless there were no other option.
*** Bug 93884 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 111337 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Theres an implementation for this in cvs, if you have specific complaints please file new bugs.