GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 47812
changing permissions for multiple items is clunky
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
When I select a few files and directories and do a right-click, select "Show properties" a window is displayed for each item. Don't know if this is a design decission, or a not yet implemented feature... Changing permissions for multiple files and directories is not the same thing as changing permissions for one item, just done a lot of times, as its currently implemented. It's not very convenient to click on 50 dialog boxes to change permissions for 50 files. A new UI is needed for changing permissions for multiple items. Something that goes along the lines of chmod [-R] {ugo}{+|-|=}{rwxX} would be useful. More detailed ideas: 1. The permission choices should not be binary It's desirable to be able to do something like: chmod g-w "THE_SELECTED_ITEMS" ie don't touch the other permissions just reset the right permission for group 2. If at one of the selected items is a directory then there should be a way to apply the permissions change recursively for the selected directories. 3. The "x" bit needs special treatment because it means different things for files and directories. Something similar to "X" in chmod chmod -R g+rX FILE_AND_DIR_LIST gives read permissions to the group, and only gives execute permissions if the owner has the "x" bit set for that specific item. This is ther right thing to do if you want to give access to a subtree, and make all the directories readable and browseable, and the executables executable, but not more than that. A lot of people do chmod -R g+rx FILE_AND_DIR_LIST which is annoying, it makes each file executable. ------- Additional Comments From eli@eazel.com 2001-03-18 12:51:43 ---- Mac OS X also includes this feature. ------- Additional Comments From sullivan@eazel.com 2001-03-26 11:15:19 ---- I have heard people complaining about the inability to see properties for more than one individual item at the same time in Mac OS X, for what it's worth. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 40548 *** ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2001-09-09 21:31 ------- The original reporter (dann@godzilla.ics.uci.edu) of this bug does not have an account here. Reassigning to the exporter, unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org. The original owner (pavel@eazel.com) of this bug does not have an account here. Reassigning to the default owner of the component, nautilus-maint@bugzilla.gnome.org.