Nemo is a free and open-source software and official file manager of the Cinnamon desktop environment. It is a fork of GNOME Files (formerly named Nautilus).
Nautilus is default in GNOME desktop, but although I use Ubuntu, which has GNOME as default, I don't like Nautilus.
Nemo has some features that works best for me, thus I decided to install Nemo on my Ubuntu GNOME.
- Copy current path from the top bar
- Right click option to open current folder as root (good to copy files to protected locations)
- Create custom actions. This is the focus for this gist.
sudo apt install nemo
xdg-mime default nemo.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false
It is marked as deprecated
gsettings set org.nemo.desktop show-desktop-icons true
Grab the file below, nemo-desktop.desktop, and copy it to your autostart folder ~/.config/autostart/nemo-desktop.desktop, or execute this to create and save the file
mkdir ~/.config/autostart
touch ~/.config/autostart/nemo-desktop.desktop
cat <<EOF > ~/.config/autostart/nemo-desktop.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=nemo-desktop
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_US]=nemo-desktop
Name=nemo-desktop
Comment[en_US]=Nemo Desktop icons
Comment=Nemo Desktop icons
EOF
xdg-mime default nautilus.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
rm ~/.config/autostart/nemo-desktop.desktop
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true
gsettings set org.nemo.desktop show-desktop-icons false
sudo apt purge nemo nemo*
sudo apt autoremove
This is a great feature. We can create a configuration file that adds your own commands to the Nemo context menu, the list that opens when you right click in Nemo.
We can setup actions for when you click on a blank space in the folder, when we click on a file, and we can filter specifc extensions or formats, if we have more than X number of files selected. More options in the Nemo documentation.
Currently I am using actions only for blank spaces in a folder.
git init %F- Initiates a git repository in current folder without command line or other toolscode %F- Open current folder in VSCodegit-cola cola -r %F- Open current folder in Git-Cola, an application for Git GUIpython3 -m venv %F/.venv- Create a Python virtual environment in current folder
The Nemo actions folder is located at ~/.local/share/nemo/actions. Just copy files below to this location or execute these commands
Git init
cat <<EOF > ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/git_init.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Git Init
Comment=Initiate a Git Repository
Exec=git init %F
Selection=none
Extensions=dir;
Icon-Name=git-cola
Dependencies=git;
EOF
Open Git-Cola
cat <<EOF > ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/open_git-cola.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Open Git-Cola
Comment=Open Git-Cola in this folder
Exec=git-cola cola -r %F
Selection=none
Extensions=dir;
Icon-Name=git-cola
Dependencies=git-cola;
EOF
Open VSCode
cat <<EOF > ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/open_vscode.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Open VSCode
Comment=Open VSCode in this folder
Exec=code %F
Selection=none
Extensions=dir;
Icon-Name=com.visualstudio.code
Dependencies=code;
EOF
Open VSCodium
cat <<EOF > ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/open_vscodium.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Open VSCodium
Comment=Open VSCodium in this folder
Exec=codium "%F"
Selection=none
Extensions=dir;
Icon-Name=/usr/share/codium/resources/app/resources/linux/code.png
Dependencies=codium;
EOF
Create Python venv
cat <<EOF > ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/create_py_venv.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Create Python .venv
Comment=Create a Python virtual enviroment in this folder
Exec=python3 -m venv %F/.venv
Selection=none
Extensions=dir;
Icon-Name=python3
Dependencies=python3;
EOF