Some annoyances in Nautilus/Caja
 

Hi there,

usually I use Nautilus, which is the default file manager in Gnome, or its sibling Caja in MATE, which seems to be quite the same. There are, however, a few things about these two that regularly get me annoyed or even drive me up the wall.

• Unit of file size:
  Nautilus/Caja seem to decide on their own whether they display the size of a file in bytes, in kB, MB or GB - even in a wild mix within the same directory. Is there a way to set this to one unit for good? Like Windows Explorer, which always displays the size in kB.
• Unit of file size:
  Can Nautilus/Caja be made to compute "true" kB, MB or GB? That is, based on a factor of 1024 instead of 1000?
• Column width:
  That's my #1 of annoyances: When I open a directory, Nautilus/Caja always adjust the column widths to some crazy dimensions; often two or three times the width I'd like. Is there a way to lock the column widths to a size that I specify manually?

[X] Doc CPU

The short answer is no. The designers have tried to get the best options:

A quick look at one of my directories shows file sizes ranging from 149B to 11MB. Would it really be a good idea to express both of those in kB?

The column width is based on the largest entry that has to be displayed. I suspect that most people don't want things shortened to fit them in.

They've also decided, rightly or wrongly, not to add too many customisations: one man's useful feature is another man's bloat! I do sympathise though: I hate the way Thunar lists the size of a directory rather than the number of files in it.

Hi there,

and failed, in my eyes. They even failed to display the file owner/group as the numerical uid/gid, only verbosely.

Yes. Or even better, in bytes. At any rate, all files in one directory in the same unit.

And I'm getting furious when the column layout changes all the time. I set the columns the way I like and want overlong data to be truncated. Maybe in full length as a tooltip.

Can't help agreeing on that. However, my motto is, and has always been: Any extra feature that can't be disabled is a potential nuisance.

Thunar? Hmm, don't remember ... let's have a look ...
Ah, it displays the space that the directory itself occupies. Agreed, I rarely need to know that, but Nautilus doesn't reveal that information at all. Never. Point for Thunar, thus. And Thunar doesn't change column width all the time.

I found xfe as a file manager that comes close to my prferences. But xfe, too, changes the file size unit randomly, and it pulls in a shitload of dependencies. Why, I ask you, would a file manager need audacious as a dependency?
Summing it all up, I haven't yet found a file manager for GNU/Linux that would match up with Windows Explorer in terms of versatility and usability - though of course Windows Explorer isn't perfect, either.
What other file managers are there that I could try? Clear, simple, with all extra sugar defeatable?

[X] Doc CPU

To enable previews?

Hi there,

previews for audio files? We seem to have a different understanding of what a "preview" should be. Okay.

In my assessment, it is beyond the usual scope of a file manager to give previews. I'd neither expect, nor actually want that.

However, if it does, it must not consider the extra software mandatory that is required for an optional feature. If a file manager supports previews, it has to produce them with what's available on the host system, or not offer them at all. In other words: If the file manager detects the presence of an appropriate image or audio lib, it may use that to offer previews. But it must not require them.

Does your local electronics dealer require that you own or buy a bluetooth headset along with some new mobile phone, just because this phone can be used with a bluetooth headset? No he doesn't. But that's what the programmers of xfe do - or the people who packaged xfe into the Mint repositories.

[X] Doc CPU