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Sudheer
Asked: 2014-05-12 08:17:43 +0800 CST

Editing Nautilus to add split screen (F3) feature in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

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I previously used Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which has a version of Nautilus with a split screen feature it was very handy. I recently installed the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS version by removing 12.04 version which doesn't have this feature.

Can I get this feature back in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Nautilus 3.10.1 by editing Nautilus' system files or library files that Nautilus uses? I found some solutions but I don't want to downgrade Nautilus to older versions or any patched versions.

Thanks in advance.

14.04

2 Answers

  1. Patching nautilus

    The F3 functionality was removed via this bugzilla report.

    The bugzilla report contains the patch used to actually remove the functionality.

    As you can see from the stats - it was a sizable patch crossing many source files

    19 files changed, 916 insertions(+), 1847 deletions

    Thus, to reinstate this, you'll need to reverse engineer this. What makes this more difficult, is that the code base of nautilus has changed considerably between Nautilus from Gnome 3.2 when F3 was available to todays Gnome 3.10/3.12 code base.

    Thus its not going to be an easy, "take this diff and insert into the source file". You'll likely to have to manually match up the various functions and manually edit the source.

    Hints:

    To build nautilus is relatively straightforward:

    apt-get source nautilus
sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus

    Make your changes. Compile via either running the autogen in the top-tree level or seeing if a debuild -us -uc method works if you've patched the source files in the debian/patches folder.

    More information here how to build.

    If this seems like hardwork - it is. Good luck. I'm sure you'll have a grateful community if you manage to hack it.

    If you like an easier life, this Q&A gives alternative methods and alternative file-managers that has this capability.

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  2. Use Dolphin in desktop mode:

    apt-get install dolphin

    Use MC in server mode:

    apt-get install mc

    Regards,

    @rafageist

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