Creating a file browser for Thunar with Zenity

This article was published a long time ago in my old blog about Xfce, based on another article published in the Xubuntu blog and I leave them here again.

What we are going to do is create a file search for Thunar using zenity. The first thing we have to do is install zenity:

$ sudo aptitude install zenity

Then we open a terminal and put:

$ mkdir ~/.bash-scripts/

In this way we create a directory that will contain the script that will execute the action itself. Now we create a file called Search-for-Files inside as follows:

mousepad ~/.bash-scripts/search-for-files

and we paste this inside:

#! / bin / bash # search-for-files # change this figure to suit yourself - I find zenity dies from about 1000 results but YMMV maxresults = 500 # again, change the path to the icon to suit yourself. But who doesn't like tango? window_icon = "/ usr / share / icons / Tango / scalable / actions / search.svg" # this script will work for any environment that has bash and zenity, so the filemanager is entirely down to you! you can add extra arguments to the string as long as the last argument is the path of the folder you open filemanager = "thunar" window_title = "Search for Files" srcPath = "$ *" if! [-d "$ srcPath"]; then cd ~ / srcPath = `zenity --file-selection --directory --title =" $ window_title - Look in folder "--window-icon =" $ window_icon "` fi if [-d "$ srcPath"] ; then fragment = `zenity --entry --title =" $ window_title - Name contains: "--window-icon =" $ window_icon "--text =" Search strings less than 2 characters are ignored "` if! [$ {# fragment} -lt 2]; then (echo 10 O = $ IFS IFS = $ '\ n' files = (`find" $ srcPath "-iname" * $ fragment * "-printf \"% Y \ "\ \"% f \ "\ \" % k \ KB \ "\ \"% t \ "\ \"% h \ "\\\ n | head -n $ maxresults`) IFS = $ O echo 100 selected =` eval zenity --list --title = \ "$ {# files [@]} Files Found - $ window_title \" --window-icon = "$ window_icon" --width = "600" --height = "400" --text = \ "Search results : \ "--print-column = 5 --column \" Type \ "--column \" Name \ "--column \" Size \ "--column \" Date modified \ "--column \" Path \ "$ {files [@]}` if [-e "$ selected"]; then "$ filemanager" "$ selected"; fi) | zenity --progress --auto-close --pulsate --title = "Searching ..." --window-icon = "$ window_icon" --text = "Searching for \" $ fragment \ "" fi fi exit

and we give it execution permissions:

chmod a+x ~/.bash-scripts/search-for-files

Now we make a backup of the uca.xml file:

$ sudo cp /etc/xdg/Thunar/uca.xml /etc/xdg/Thunar/uca.xml.old

to which we will put at the end this:

<action>
<icon>/usr/share/icons/Tango/scalable/actions/search.svg</icon>
<name>Search for Files</name>
<command>bash ~/.bash-scripts/search-for-files %f</command>
<description>Search this folder for files</description>
<patterns>*</patterns>
<directories/>
</action>

Now what we have left is to open Thunar » Edit » Set up custom actions and we create a new one. And we fill in the following fields:

In the Basic:
Name: Search
Description: Search
Command: bash ~ / .bash-scripts / search-for-files% f
Icon: We select the one we like the most.

Remaining like this:

Now in the tab Terms of use appearance the following fields:
File Pattern: *
Appears if the selection contains: Directory.

And it looks like this:

Now Thunar When we open the menu with the right click, the search option does not appear:

And if we click on it, a window will appear where we can insert the search criteria:

When we start the search we will see something like this:

and finally the result of it:

If we double-click on the result, a window of Thunar with the folder where the file is located. In this way we give our desktop much more power Xfce.