Ubuntu – How to make the Nautilus sidebar default to tree view

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.

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"

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);

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

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:

After:

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

RESULT:

Hope this helps.

Overview

To find the metadata for a folder you need to use the command gvfs-info foldername

for example gvfs-info /home/homefolder/Desktop

In the list that returns you will see the attribute metadata::nautilus-default-view which describes the default view.

You can change this attribute using the command gvfs-set_attribute foldername attribute newvalue

for example:

gvfs-set-attribute /home/homefolder/Desktop "metadata::nautilus-default-view" "OAFIID:Nautilus_File_Manager_Icon_View"

Script

Now I have to admit my bash scripting skills aren't the best, but here you go - my script below will allow you to reset all the views below the folder-name given.

Syntax:

folderreset [OPTION] full_base_directory_name

for example this will reset to compact view all folders below /home/homefolder/Desktop

folderreset -c /home/homefolder/Desktop

use folderreset -h for the syntax.

Feel free to tinker and amend.

#!/bin/bash

#Licensed under the standard MIT license:
#Copyright 2013 fossfreedom.
#Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
#The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
#THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE

################################ USAGE #######################################

usage=$(
cat <<EOF
Usage:
$0 [OPTION] base_full_directory_name 

 -h, --help     display this help
 -l, --list     set to list view
 -i, --icon     set to icon view
 -c, --compact  set to compact view

for example

$0 -i /home/myhome/Desktop

This will reset all directories BELOW /home/myhome/Desktop

EOF
)

########################### OPTIONS PARSING #################################

#parse options
TMP=`getopt --name=$0 -a --longoptions=list,icon,compact,help -o l,i,c,h -- $@`

if [[ $? == 1 ]]
then
    echo
    echo "$usage"
    exit
fi

eval set -- $TMP

#default values
META=OAFIID:Nautilus_File_Manager_List_View

until [[ $1 == -- ]]; do
    case $1 in
        -l|--list)
            META=OAFIID:Nautilus_File_Manager_List_View
            ;;
        -i|--icon)
            META=OAFIID:Nautilus_File_Manager_Icon_View
            ;;
        -c|--compact)
            META=OAFIID:Nautilus_File_Manager_Compact_View
            ;;
        -h|--help)
            echo "$usage"
            exit
            ;;
    esac
    shift # move the arg list to the next option or '--'
done
shift # remove the '--', now $1 positioned at first argument if any

if [ ! -d "$1" ]
then
        echo "Directory does not exist!"
        exit 4
fi

find "$1"/* -type d | while read "D"; do gvfs-set-attribute "$D" "metadata::nautilus-default-view" "$META" &>/dev/null; done

GUI wrapper

Here is a simple GUI wrapper script that could be used to set the view mode right from the Nautilus scripts context menu:

#!/bin/bash

# Licensed under the standard MIT license
# (c) 2013 Glutanimate (http://askubuntu.com/users/81372/)

FOLDERRESET="./folderreset.sh"
WMICON=nautilus
THUMBICON=nautilus
WMCLASS="folderviewsetter"
TITLE="Set folder view"

DIR="$1"

checkifdir(){
if [[ -d "$DIR" ]] 
  then
      echo "$DIR is a directory"
  else
      yad --title="$TITLE" \
          --image=dialog-error \
          --window-icon=dialog-error \
          --class="$WMCLASS" \
          --text="Error: no directory selected." \
          --button="Ok":0
      exit
fi
}

setviewtype (){
VIEWTYPE=$(yad \
    --width 300 --entry --title "$TITLE" \
    --image=nautilus \
    --button="ok:2" --button="cancel" \
    --text "Select view mode:" \
    --entry-text \
    "list" "icon" "compact")

 if [ -z "$VIEWTYPE" ]
   then
       exit
 fi

}  


checkifdir
setviewtype

"$FOLDERRESET" --"$VIEWTYPE" "$DIR"

The script depends on the zenity fork yad which can be installed from this PPA. Make sure to point FOLDERRESET= to the location of the folderreset script on your system.