Ubuntu – How to edit Nautilus Places sidebar and Unity QuickList

nautilusquicklists

I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 with Nautilus 3.6 and I want to edit the Nautilus Places sidebar menu (Not Bookmarks).

By default have the following items: Recent, Home, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos & Trash.

I wish:

  • Add folder to Places (Not Bookmarks).
  • Added Folder must be present in Unity QuickList (Right Click Nautilus icon in Launcher).
  • Remove Recent files (Default in Nautilus 3.6).
  • Rename Trash to another name.

how can I achieve these goals?

NOTE: I tried editing ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs file, but not luck. Is there another way to customize Nautilus Places menu?

Best Answer

In order to achieve that.. you should edit the Nautilus source code and the nautilus.desktop file or using another file manager that allows this, such as nemo.


NOTE: In this example I'm running ubuntu 13.04 with nautilus (files) 3.6.3.
You can test this in a virtual machine to see if everything is OK.


1) Make sure you have enable the Source code repository

  • Open the Ubuntu Software Center
  • In the Menu Bar choose Edit -> Software Sources. Click to enable "Source code repository". Just in case I use the "Main Server" to Download.

enter image description here

Open a Terminal Window to update the repositories.

  • sudo apt-get update

2) In the Terminal type the following to install the necessary packages.

  • sudo apt-get install build-essential quilt

3) Install build dependencies.

  • sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus

4) Create a folder to download the source code.

  • mkdir ~/Downloads/src

  • cd ~/Downloads/src

5) Download the source code & Export variables.

  • apt-get source nautilus

  • export QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches

  • export EDITOR=gedit

6) Create the patch and edit the source code.

  • cd nautilus-3.6.3/

  • quilt new my_custom_places.patch

  • quilt edit src/nautilus-places-sidebar.c


Custom Trash: To change the name of the Trash.You can change the strings in the lines 567 and 569.

eg: "Trash" to "Custom Trash" & "Open the trash" to "Open the Custom Trash"

enter image description here


Add Folder: In this example I will add the "Test" folder in my home directory /home/virtual/Test. (change the folder according to your needs)

After the line number 562 add the following:

/* add Test directory */
mount_uri = "file:///home/virtual/Test";
icon = g_themed_icon_new (NAUTILUS_ICON_FOLDER);
add_place (sidebar, PLACES_BUILT_IN,
       SECTION_COMPUTER,
       _("Test"), icon, mount_uri,
       NULL, NULL, NULL, 0,
       _("Open Test folder"));
g_object_unref (icon);

enter image description here


Remove Recent Files: To remove the Recent Files from the places... delete the lines from 525 to 534.

enter image description here

Save the changes.


7) Build the deb packages.

  • quilt refresh
  • fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage

8) Install the deb packages.

  • cd ..

  • sudo dpkg -i *deb

9) For system-wide..edit the nautilus.desktop file to add the folder eg:(/home/virtual/Test) in the quick list.

  • sudo nano /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop

Change:

Actions=Window;

To:

Actions=Test;Window;

Add:

[Desktop Action Test]
Name=Test             
Exec=nautilus --new-window /home/virtual/Test
OnlyShowIn=Unity;

Before:

enter image description here

After:

enter image description here

10) Finally you can logout and Login to see the changes.

RESULT:

enter image description here

Hope this helps.

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