Arch Linux

pianorama

Member

Registered: 2017-12-18

Posts: 7

[Solved] Gnome changing default File menus

Hi everybody,

I am running GNOME desktop environment and I would like to change the default file manager.

Yes I know, the internet is full with topics regarding this, yet I cannot get it working.

Distro: Newest Arch Linux (Obviously)
Desktop: Gnome
Old File Manager: Nautilus (Gnome's default)
New File Manager: Thunar

I have currently tried:
running exo-preferred-applications and looking at the second tab reports thunar as default file manager using:

 exo-preferred-applications 

running this in the console:

 xdg-mime default Thunar.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search

as well as this:

 gio mime inode/directory 

which returns

Default application for “inode/directory”: Thunar-folder-handler.desktop
Registered applications:
	Thunar-folder-handler.desktop
	org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
Recommended applications:
	Thunar-folder-handler.desktop
	org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop

Running gvfs-mime results in an depreciation warning pointing to gio mime.

Looking at ~/.config/mimeapps.list I find:

1 [Added Associations]
  2 application/pdf=evince.desktop;
  3 image/jpeg=eog.desktop;
  4 text/plain=org.gnome.gedit.desktop;libreoffice-writer.desktop;
  5 text/x-csrc=org.gnome.gedit.desktop;
  6 text/calendar=evolution.desktop;org.gnome.Calendar.desktop;
  7 inode/directory=Thunar-folder-handler.desktop;
  8 application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text=libreoffice-writer.desktop;
  9 application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document=libr    eoffice-writer.desktop;
 10 
 11 [Default Applications]
 12 text/calendar=org.gnome.Calendar.desktop
 13 inode/directory=Thunar.desktop
 14 application/x-gnome-saved-search=Thunar.desktop

Initially, I looked at the archwiki regarding default applications. Some of the listed directories do not contain files in my case (e.g. /usr/share/applications and /etc/xdg/). Others I have checked as described above.

However if I now open a random application (say Eclipse or Libreoffice) and press save, the file menu is still Nautilus.

Any help on changing this menu to Thunar is very welcomed . Is there at all anyway to change this within Gnome? My apologies if I overlooked any topic with answers on the subject.

Last edited by pianorama (2018-03-03 13:38:22)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,750

Re: [Solved] Gnome changing default File menus

The "save" and "file open" and similar dialogs are not a general purpose file manager and are not nautilus either. That is a specific widget (GTKFileChooser) provided by the GTK toolkit. As nautilus and GTK3 are developed "together" that dialog will borrow certain semantics from Nautilus. It is not Nautilus and you cannot replace it with a general purpose file manager like thunar.

There are a few programs that can use their own or another file chooser dialog if they have been explicitly developed in such a way. Since you explicitly mention eclipse and LibreOffice which are both programs that do not entirely rely on GTK3 they both have some leeway (but still not "just use thunar instead" kind of leeway). LibreOffice has the explicit ability to use it's own file chooser (however whether that is more usable than the GTK one remains to be seen) in addition to the fact that you can change the backing library of it's interface to e.g. GTK2, which will lead to the GTK2 dialog being used, as explained here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LibreOffice#Theme

Eclipse in a similar fashion allows you to switch to different SWT themes/engine, and also has the ability to use GTK2 instead, as detailed here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ec … e_GTK.2B_3

However these kind of applications are usually the exception and you are stuck with the dialog of the backing toolkit.

Last edited by V1del (2018-03-03 13:07:12)

pianorama

Member

Registered: 2017-12-18

Posts: 7

Re: [Solved] Gnome changing default File menus

V1del that was a very clear explanation, many thanks. I was already afraid that this might be a luxory problem coming along with the use of Gnome, which luckily manages many of those things.

I'll cope with the widget, and look into it whether I can change the way it searches and saves .