Nautilus, the Gnome file assistant manager, sucks utter donkeyballs. Let us make an unordered list of the ways:

  • If the underlying filesystem changes, say a copy operation, the file manager view does not update without a manual refresh by CTL+R. This leaves the view in a stale state, presenting false file information to the user, who might never know until they do something bad. This is a showstopper bug that’s been hanging around since forever.

  • Batch rename. Good luck trying to rename a series of files ordered sequentially by number, if the number happens to start with any number other than one. A sequence from 2 to x is impossible to batch rename. Because regex in sed never worked either. No, wait. It’s always worked! For like, 50 years.

  • Why, when moving a collection of files or a directory within the same filesystem, does it actually perform a copy and delete operation, taking cpu and time, when the inode location could just be updated like mv does?

  • Thumbnails? Why do they take longer to generate for images and video than than the totality of the existence of the universe?

Nautilus is an unusable mess. If command line file utils were this bad, we’d never be able to reliably store and manipulate files. Who in their right mind actually uses this junk?

    • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
      1·
      1 year ago

      Ah, so the file overview issue was fixed a few months ago. Two weeks from initial report to upstream fix + downstream package release doesn’t seem too bad to be honest.

      Now I understand what you meant by the bulk rename. I must admit that I never even knew this feature existed before you mentioned it here. It’s rather disappointing to see the lack of activity on that issue, as it shouldn’t be too difficult a fix. However, I don’t know Gnome’s road map, I wouldn’t know what their current priorities are. They seem to have been working hard on long standing issues (after decades, the file picker has thumbnails!) which was a welcome surprise, so perhaps they’ll pick this issue up along the way.

      • Paranoid Factoid@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        That view bug has been sitting around since 2009, from what I can gather. But a file manager giving false filesystem state to a user is a showstopper. It violates the main purpose of the program. And risks data loss. Users may make errors based on false information.

        Batch renaming I use regularly by ingesting media from cameras, though typically at the command line.