Getting a handle on Nautilus

[James Michael Fultz]

* Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> [2010-02-17 18:49 +0200]:
> I am really enjoying Nautilus (moved from Dolphin) but I have a few
> remaining things that I simply cannot figure out how to do. If someone
> could help, that would be great!
> 
> 1) How to sort by Name, Date Modified, or Size with a keyboard
> shortcut or icon. I know that I can dig in the menus, or I can do
> multiple keyboard shortcuts (such as Alt-V,G,D or Alt-V,G,N) but I'd
> like to make that a single shortcut for Name, a single shortcut for
> Date, and a single shortcut for Size. Or at least have icons for
> sorting by these in the toolbar.

Icon View:  Ctrl-1
List View:  Ctrl-2
Compact View:  Ctrl-3

> 2) Split screen? Does Nautilus not do this?

Split window or dual panes is a feature expected in Nautilus with the
release of Lucid Lynx.  A preview is available via PPA.

<http://awebfactory.com.ar/node/426>

There is a workable compromise if you have desktop effects enabled.  The
Grid plugin allows tiling of windows into a grid arrangement.  This
makes it easy to have two file browser windows side-by-side.  Of course,
Grid plugin is nifty for tiling other application windows.

> 3) Some shortcuts seem to be doubly-assigned, such as Ctrl-F. Although
> the context menu has F underlined for New Folder, it actually opens
> the File menu. I don't see how to create a new folder with a keyboard
> shortcut. How? And can I add an icon for New Folder on the toolbar?

Create Folder:  Shift-Ctrl-N

> 4) There are three toolbars: menu toolbar, icon toolbar, addressbar.
> Can I put the icons on the menu toolbar or on the addressbar, as
> Firefox lets one do? Ideally, they would _all_ be on the same bar to
> save vertical space (I do have Firefox configured like this).

There is no way I know of doing this, though you can disable the display
of toolbars through the View menu.

There is some work on modifying Nautilus' appearance in manner like
you've described, but I don't know whether it's something that will make
its way into Ubuntu.

<http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/01/nautilus-simple-install-ppa-streamlined.html>