Nautilus 3.24 and dropping type-ahead search, adding tracker

Jeremy Bicha jbicha at ubuntu.com
Wed Feb 22 13:45:22 UTC 2017


As discussed at the end of yesterday's Desktop Team meeting, I'd like
to update Ubuntu's default file manager nautilus from 3.20 to 3.24 for
Ubuntu 17.10.

The new version offers several visible improvements. Highlights include:
- The view menu has been consolidated into a single "hamburger" menu
with a separate toggle in the toolbar to switch between icon and list
view.
- Batch renaming is integrated. Just select multiple files then Rename.
- File compression and decompression is integrated.

There is one downside:
Years ago, Nautilus dropped the type-ahead search feature. Ubuntu has
had a patch to hack it back in. The patch will be dropped soon after
the archives open for 17.10 development in April unless someone is
able to get it working with the new version. It is a fairly invasive
patch. Even if it is fixed now, it will likely be broken by future
versions because Nautilus is undergoing significant refactoring to enable
future improvements.

Nautilus' built-in search has improved since the type-ahead patch was
first introduced to Ubuntu. One thing that can make it even better is
to allow tracker to run by default in Unity too.

For more on these changes, see these bugs:
https://launchpad.net/bugs/1666681
https://launchpad.net/bugs/1666676

Two other patches need to be updated:
12_unity_launcher_support.patch (worked with 3.22.0, needs updating for 3.22.1+)
0002-Only-use-a-header-bar-in-GNOME-shell.patch (more header bars have
been added)

Thank you,
Jeremy Bicha



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