Ubuntu – How to add custom links in the left pane of Nautilus

As aneeshep's answer explains, the key is creating an appropriate .desktop "launcher". But there's a simpler way than doing it by hand; in many cases, you may not even need to edit the .desktop file.

Solution: Use Ubuntu Tweak

• Ubuntu Tweak is a utility, which among other things, allows you to associate file types to be opened with a custom command. Behind the scenes, it creates a .desktop file which you can edit further for your needs, e.g. if you are using a command-line editor or program to open, etc.

In this how-to, we look at how to set up Nautilus to open .php files in the free Komodo Edit GUI text editor, which comes with a shell-installer that installs it in your home directory by default; the program/command is then /home/user/Komodo-Edit-7/bin/komodo

1. Install Ubuntu Tweak

• Add its PPA, update and install Ubuntu Tweak from the terminal with:

  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
  

  Update: Check this question for updated instructions for newer Ubuntu releases

  • How do I install Ubuntu-Tweak?

2. Find the MIME description for your file extension

• Before using Ubuntu Tweak, we need to find the MIME description for the file extension we're interested in.

• Open Nautilus, find one of the files we want (here, .php), right-click on it and click on Properties:

  

• In the Properties window which comes up, note the text shown just after Type:; that's the MIME description we're looking for (here, "PHP Script"):

  

3. Add a custom program to open your filetype

• Start Ubuntu Tweak from the Dash, and click on the Admins tab on top; then click on the File Type Manager entry on the bottom:

  

• After the File Type Manager opens, click on All in the left sidebar, and uncheck the Only show filetypes... box at the bottom:

  

• Select any filetype on the right side, and begin typing the first few letters of the MIME description from Step 2 to automatically search and select your filetype:

  

• Double-click on your filetype, which is now selected, to edit its associated commands.

  • Click on Add, and in the Add Application window, expand the Custom Command option on the bottom
  • Type the command/program you want or use the Browse button to navigate to it and select it; here we have selected the Komodo-Edit editor from my home folder:

  

  • Click on Add, so the new command is now the default, and then click Close:

  

• PHP files will now open in Komodo by default, as seen in the Properties below; press the Reset button to go back to the default for that filetype:

  

Here is a small Nautilus script which gives you a "Use a custom command" dialogue box on Nautilus.

The Script

Save the following script as Open with custom command in the following directory

• ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/ (Ubuntu 13.04 or above)
• ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ (Ubuntu 12.10 and below)

#!/bin/bash
var=$(zenity --entry \
--title="Add Application" \
--text="Use a custom command" \
--width="320")
if [ $? -eq 0 ] && [ "$var" ]; then
    $var "$1"
else
    exit 0
fi

• Give the script execution permission. It is important, otherwise no change will take place. You can use in terminal,

chmod +x ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/Open\ with\ custom\ command

Or you can do it from GUI. Right click on the script, then go to Properties >> Permissions and check the box corresponds to Execute to give the script execution permission.

How it looks like

After that when you right click on a file you could see an option Scripts followed by another option under script Open with custom command.

When you select the option Open with custom command, you will get a dialogue box like,

You can write a command in the box to open the file.

Usage

You can open any file by entering corresponding application's command only in the dialogue box.

For example you can open a .txt file using gedit or a .pdf file writing evince in the dialogue box.

Some Other Usage

Open file as root:

If you want to open a file as root, just use gksudo before your command. To open a .txt file as root you can use in the dialogue box,

gksudo gedit

Opening an unknown file:

If you are not sure which application to use to open an unknown file, you can use in the dialogue box,

xdg-open

Opening a file with a Terminal Application:

If you want to open a text file using vi, you can use in the dialogue box,

gnome-terminal -x vi

Note:

To use gksudo you need to have gksu installed. In Ubuntu 13.04 onwards it is not install by default. You can install it using,

sudo apt-get install gksu