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When we download something in firefox and right-click on item [firefox->download] and select open with folder it just open containing folder [nautilus] but does not highlight the downloaded item.

In windows and mac open folder highlight the downloaded item. It is very difficult to find recently downloaded file if there are so many existing file or folder. Is there is any way to do this in nautilus?

Jorge Castro
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shantanu
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    why do not sort by time in list view? – enzotib Jul 14 '11 at 20:27
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    why do not nautilus highlight? That's a compromise. why should we do that? – shantanu Jul 16 '11 at 15:58
  • because not all applications can do all you want. It is a good thing if someone answers, but the answer could also be: it is not possible what you want. – enzotib Jul 16 '11 at 18:41
  • shantanu - I would really love this feature also. It is a usability papercut and should be taken seriously. When I learn more about programming this is on my todo list. For now it is PHP and JS but here I come Nautilus download file highlight PITA. – Elijah Lynn Aug 08 '12 at 20:57
  • enzotib - That is what I do right now, and it is a PITA. Nautilus should just do this. When we show file in folder we want to do that, not click two more times. – Elijah Lynn Aug 08 '12 at 20:58

1 Answers1

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The specific feature you asked about is not availaale, but here are a couple of alternatives:

  1. When nautilus is open at the relevant directory, just start typing the first few letters of the file name. This will highlight the file.

  2. Using the following tools you can use the clipboard and skip the typing, as follows: Install these: sudo apt-get install nautilus-scripts-manager xdotool xsel
    Then create the following nautilus-script in the nautilus-scripts-manager directory.

    #!/bin/bash                           
     xdotool type $(xsel -o -b; sleep .3) 

Next, assign a short-cut key to run the script.
It is very practical to use a short-cut key which is local to nautilus. You can do this via a combination of nautilus-scripts-manager's sub-menu item for this script (under nautilus' File menu), and a gnome short-cut key manager tool, which is described in this link: "Editable Menu Accelerators" (on a per app basis).

Set up a short-cut key, eg. Ctrl-Shift-S, and then just copy the filename to the clipboard. amd run the script via the short-cut key. This will "type" the text in the clipbooard, as though you typed it, and the nautilus auto-search feature will pinpoint the file and highlight it.

More: You could modify the script to strip out the filename from the downoad link... This means that you could sometimes(often?) just copy the download link to the clipboard.

Community
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Peter.O
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