Linux Desktop Hacks

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Chapter 6, GNOME Desktop Hacks

#47 Create Your Own GNOME Right-Click Actions

HACK

HACK

#47

Create Your Own GNOME Right-Click Actions Hack #47

Create custom menu actions in the Nautilus file manager.

GNOME and its file manager, Nautilus, have a custom menu feature simi-

lar to KDE/Konqueror. This hack shows you how to exploit that Nautilus

feature, add your own menu selections, and get around some of the limita-

tions of Nautilus.

The Nautilus approach and the KDE approach to adding custom menu

selections differ in that you can’t make the Nautilus menu selections con-

text-sensitive so that they appear only when they would be useful. This

means you can create menu actions that are useless in the wrong context.

For example, there’s no reason why you would want to click a spreadsheet

and then select “convert to PNG image” from a custom menu. Yet, if you

create a script that converts a file to a PNG image, that menu option (along

with all the other script menu selections you have created) will appear even

when you select files where such a conversion would be nonsense.

The only way to make a script context-sensitive is to associate the script

with a type of file by using the GNOME File Types and Programs applet.

After that, the script will appear as one of the ways to “Open” the file.

Figure 6-2. Two gDesklets on the GNOME desktop