Linux – Catfish Search in Thunar doesn’t work in Xfce

I am not sure to understand that command. Why do you put -- before the %F?

Try this:

xfce4-terminal -e "parallel avconv -i '{}' -map 0:1 -c:a copy '{}.m4a' ::: %F"

Explanation: As I understand the %F is what Thunar replaces by the files, and parallel uses ::: for the input.

One example in the manpage is, precisely

parallel gzip {} ::: file1 file2

To add to Thunar custom action a command like the one from here

for i in *.mp4; do avconv -i "${i}" -map 0:1 -c:a copy "${i%.mp4}.aac"; done

first add that into an executable script, like

#! /bin/sh -e
for i in *.mp4; do avconv -i "${i}" -map 0:1 -c:a copy "${i%.mp4}.m4a"; done

Make it executable and save it.

In Thunar custom actions add a new entry with the command bash /path/to/the/script %F and the following conditions:

This needs separate custom actions for each file type (because it is limited to mp4 to m4a: make changes accordingly for flv to m4a, webm to ogg, avi to mp3 etc) but has the advantage that the output keeps the exact input name (file.mp4 becomes file.m4a), while with the first command does not (file.mp4 becomes file.mp4.m4a).

By request, my comment posted as an answer: xfdesktop docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/start

Unfortunately, I don't have any directly pertinent details, as I've never pursued replacement of xfdesktop with a file manager's desktop handling functionality or anything else.

I did do a brief search of replace "xfdesktop" on DuckDuckGo and found (four pages deep in the search results) a page providing evidence that xfdesktop can be replaced. See the section of the page Tips, Tricks and Howtos | Xfce Wiki entitled "How to use ROX to manage your desktop in order to have desktop icons". Don't know if that's of any help, but there it is.