So there's something that's bugging me on Ubuntu, never figured out how to fix it.
On Windows 10, if I have multiple files in a folder and I type the first letters, it just automatically selects the folder starting with the same few letters.
On Ubuntu, it lists matching items, like this:
As you can see, it does a search of "goo" instead of highlighting the google-chrome folder without searching.
Is there any way to fix this?
Thank you!
There is no reliable way to fix this in later versions, unless moving to another file manager. For 18.04, a patched version of nautilus implementing the old type ahead feature may still be around, but realize this is a dead end.
Another way is living with it. I personally prefer the feature by far over the old type-ahead functionality that was borrowed from Window 3.1. It allows to find a specific file much quicker. Especially if you have many files, remembering the first letters is not always obvious. With the search, you just need to remember a few snippets of the name to retrieve the file directly. Thanks to this feature, a folder/file naming scheme starting with the date works perfectly. You quickly navigate to a specific folder, no matter how much levels deep.
To approach the old behavior better, you may disable "search in subfolders" in the Preferences. Then, only matches in the current folder will be found. Once you highlighted the desired file, press Esc to see the file in its context in the folder.
If you maintain recursive search, then the shortcut key Ctrl+Alt+O becomes important. That is the key that always will show you the file in its folder. Esc will do that only if the file is in the current folder. Otherwise, it will just show the current folder with no file selected.