Nautilus Elementary: A Simplified Patched Nautilus For Ubuntu

For up to date screenshots, see Ubuntu 10.10 Nautilus Elementary PPA Updated, Comes With ClutterView, Embedded Terminal By Default. And here's a video too.

Remember the Simplified Nautilus? At some point, it used to be maintained in the Gloobus PPA. This was because some people used either Simplified Nautilus or Dual Pane Nautilus, and since Gloobus Preview needs to patch Nautilus to work (thus overwriting another modified Nautilus version), they've also maintained 2 modified Nautilus versions for which they've applied the Gloobus patch for the people using those.

The Gloobus PPA no longer maintains this simplified Nautilus (for quite some time), but a recent post on the Gloobus blog points out to a new "simplified" Nautilus called Nautilus Elementary which looks like this:

Nautilus Elementary version in the PPA:

Latest Nautilus Elementary:

Here is a another screenshot by DanRabbit:

The menu can be toggled as usual using Alt + M.

The idea

The simplified / elementary Nautilus idea firstly begun with the 100 paper cuts for Ubuntu Karmic and it stated that the menu and columns are too big and take away space for the really important stuff. Unfortunately, a fix was never released. Here is where Nautilus Elementary comes in: a Nautilus patched for simplicity.

Install Nautilus Elementary in Ubuntu

A quick note before installing: if you've installed another patched Nautilus, this version will overwrite the previous one, meaning that if you've installed the Dual Pane Nautilus for Ubuntu Karmic, or Nautilus patched with Undo / Redo, those will not work anymore.


Using the PPA

This being said, install Nautilus Elementary using the following commands (Ubuntu Karmic only!):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Then, restart Nautilus:

killall nautilus && nautilus &

Alternatively, log out and log back in.

Nautilus Elementary version is 2.28.4 while Nautilus in the Ubuntu Karmic repository is 2.28.1, so along with Nautilus Elementary, you'll also get an updated Nautilus version! The PPA version will currently install the Elementary Nautilus as in the first screenshot. To get Nautilus to look like in DanRabbit's screenshot, get the latest code from HERE or follow the following instructions.


Install the latest Nautilus Elementary

sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus
sudo apt-get install build-essential
bzr branch lp:nautilus-elementary
cd nautilus-elementary/
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

Then, don't forget to restart Nautilus (see above) or log out and log in.

If you wish to uninstall Nautilus Elementary, use THIS little package which removes a PPA along with everything it installs, and automatically reinstalls the packages from the official Ubuntu repositories.


Update: Nautilus Experimental already has the "undo/redo" patch in bzr. The PPA should be updated soon with the latest code.

Update 2: the PPA has been updated, and Nautilus in the PPA now looks like in the 3rd screenshot and also has the "undo/redo" patch!


Update 3: Nautilus Elementary now includes a zoom slider in the bottom right corner:

For up to date screenshots, see Ubuntu 10.10 Nautilus Elementary PPA Updated, Comes With ClutterView, Embedded Terminal By Default. And here's a video too.

[via Gloobus blog]

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