Thunar: Width of file name column

namgang · 2016-03-18 10:24:34

Could be a noob issue, but the "Name" column of my Thunar file manager always opens up two feet wide. (On Ubuntu Studio 14.10.) This means far outside the window so that no other columns are visible without horizontal scrolling. I almost always need a few of the others too.

One would wish Thunar could adapt itself to the actual file name lengths. Or, barring that, a much narrower default column width, 5 inches, say.

I might have missed something basic, certainly willing to be educated, thanks.

Jerry3904 · 2016-03-18 11:33:20

I might have missed something basic

Such as: place your cursor over the line between the individual headers and, when it changes into a two-headed arrow, drag it to where you want it?

MountainDewManiac · 2016-03-18 19:58:17

That's odd; my filename column is only about ½" (~13mm?) wider than my index finger. I have a total of four columns (filename, size, type, and date modified) and they all fit within the boundaries of the screen.

Regards,
MDM

ungutknut · 2016-03-23 17:00:16

namgang wrote:

One would wish Thunar could adapt itself to the actual file name lengths.

Usually it does - and that might be the problem here. When I open long lists of files/folders there's sometimes one or another among them of excessive lenght. That causes thunar to expand the name column to the edge of my screen which is annoying (especially when I use window tiling and 2 thunar windows next to each other).

So I unticked "automatically expand colums as needed" in view-->configure columns and got rid of that problem. Maybe that's what you're looking for?

namgang · 2016-04-15 14:49:29

@ungutknut, basic indeed, but it did the trick. Thanks for taking the time!

golinux · 2016-08-09 16:59:37

Thank you for the solution, ungutknut. This problem has been annoying me for a long time.

sirromj · 2016-09-14 23:38:30

This has been annoying me for a long time too - I have to adjust the filename width every time. None of the collumn widths are restored. Wondering if it's a settings issue with a long-time installation?

ungutknut · 2018-02-19 12:29:42

Sorry to open up that thread again but the problem still consists (on Xubuntu 16.04 and 17.10) and I've found a way to trigger it:

)Start thunar (v1.6.12)
)Set column width to your needs
)Restart thunar and it will remember the column width like expected
)Now insert a USB stick and let automount do it's job
)When the stick has been mounted, a new thunar window will pop up with a well expanded filename column (although "automatically expand columns as needed" is disabled)

Left is before automount, right just after:
http://i.imgur.com/4Sw1R90.png

What makes it extremely annoying is the fact that with a filename column that wide I'm unable to select multiple files/folders by drag&dropping a frame over the files/folders intented for selection.

A few years ago this selection mode has been disabled (which was a bad decision IMHO) for the filename column and is only available for all the other columns which forces me to horizontally scroll and/or use the keyboard for selection (drawing the selection frame has to be started from the file-size or file-type column). Is there a way to enable the old selection behaviour again?

edit: found an ancient bugzilla entry:
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4801

Last edited by ungutknut (2018-02-19 12:37:29)

MountainDewManiac · 2018-02-19 12:49:01

Can you install a newer version of Thunar (1.7.0)? If so, does that version also have the issue?

Regards,
MDM

ungutknut · 2018-02-20 13:20:25

Wow - my thunar version is quite outdated eventhough I'm using a bleeding-edge Ubuntu version. According to the xfce git the thunar devs were really busy since 1.6.12 which makes me want to try newer versions. Only I first have to look into compiling my own version which I've never done before. So this could take some time.

There's no ppa for that I guess?

MountainDewManiac · 2018-02-20 15:08:59

ungutknut wrote:

Wow - my thunar version is quite outdated

I don't know if that is technically correct, but there is a newer version; it looks like the 1.7 versions are development releases for Xfce 4.14.

ungutknut wrote:

even though I'm using a bleeding-edge Ubuntu version.

Are you referring to the daily build of 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver)? I see it is available here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/HEADER.html

ungutknut wrote:

l want to try newer versions.

I do, too. However, now that I'm actually noticing that I'm getting older, I'd rather that other people tried them first.

ungutknut wrote:

There's no ppa for that I guess?

The Thunar 1.7.1-1~18.04 package is available in this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~xubuntu-dev/+archive/ubuntu/experimental?field.series_filter=bionic

but only for Ubuntu 18.04.

I found the release notes for 1.7.0:

Release notes for 1.7.0
=======================
I am glad to announce the first development version of Thunar targeting
Xfce 4.14.
This release is meant to be used in tandem with other 4.13 components.
Even though this is a development release, I am confident on its
stability for
daily-usage, but since there are a couple of (minor) known issues we
will keep Thunar
1.6.x labeled as the stable version until we release Thunar 1.8.0.

Refer to the Xfce 4.14 roadmap page for further details on the known
issues and
changes introduced in the thunarx API.

Finally, I would like to thank all that contributed to this release,
especially
Jonas Kümmerlin, Alexander Schwinn, Simon Steinbeiß and Romain Bouvier.

Summary of this release:
- GTK3 Port
- Replace dbus-glib with GDBus
- Improved Pathbar style for Location Selector
- Bump thunarx to version 3 and replace GtkAction with ThunarxMenu and
ThunarxMenuItem
- GObject-Introspection support for thunarx-3
- Update thunarx documentation and fix its generation
- Same bugfixes from 1.6.13
- Translation updates: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Asturian, Bangla,
Basque,
  Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong),
  Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English
(Australia),
  English (United Kingdom), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French,
Galician,
  German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese,
  Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål,
Norwegian Nynorsk,
  Occitan, Persian (Iran), Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil),
Punjabi,
  Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Thai,
Turkish,
  Ukrainian, Urdu, Urdu (Pakistan), Uyghur, Vietnamese

https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce-announce/2017-November/000559.html

Regards,
MDM

Last edited by MountainDewManiac (2018-02-20 15:17:42)

ungutknut · 2018-02-21 14:01:16

MountainDewManiac wrote:

Are you referring to the daily build of 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver)? I see it is available here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/HEADER.html

No, still 17.10 - I probably won't update until april/may. 17.10 is "bleeding-edge" enough for me.

ungutknut wrote:

l want to try newer versions.

MountainDewManiac wrote:

I do, too. However, now that I'm actually noticing that I'm getting older, I'd rather that other people tried them first.

Haha... I feel you. Especially after I realized the need for a load of further xfce-components I'd have to compile myself as well in order to get thunar to work.

ungutknut wrote:

There's no ppa for that I guess?

MountainDewManiac wrote:

The Thunar 1.7.1-1~18.04 package is available in this PPA:
https://launchpad.net/~xubuntu-dev/+archive/ubuntu/experimental?field.series_filter=bionic
but only for Ubuntu 18.04.

I guess waiting for 18.04 and using the ppa afterwards is a reasonable compromise. Thx for the information.

SoerenB · 2018-05-08 17:17:28

ungutknut wrote in

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=47461

"What makes it extremely annoying is the fact that with a filename column that wide I'm unable to select multiple files/folders by drag&dropping a frame over the files/folders intented for selection."

I have never understood the reasons for preferring any other view than "Detailed List" .
As soon as you switch to that, and configure it like in that picture:

https://i.imgur.com/lppMVzT.png

you have the benefits of
a) sorting with just one click according to the 2 criteria that matter most (to me...) regardless of window size, and
b) be able to drag-select files - just keep your mouse in the "Date .." column

Laurentius · 2018-05-08 22:58:15

SoerenB wrote:

I have never understood the reasons for preferring any other view than "Detailed List" .

Me too.:)

SoerenB wrote:

b) (to) be able to drag-select files - just keep your mouse in the "Date .." column

Great! I didn't know that. I thought that was not possible on detailed view.

I realize now that you can "drag-select" files by keeping the mouse on any column except "Name".
I had always tried on the wrong column!

Xfce Forum

Sub domains

#1 2016-03-18 10:24:34

Thunar: Width of file name column

#2 2016-03-18 11:33:20

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#3 2016-03-18 19:58:17

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#4 2016-03-23 17:00:16

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#5 2016-04-15 14:49:29

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#6 2016-08-09 16:59:37

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#7 2016-09-14 23:38:30

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#8 2018-02-19 12:29:42

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#9 2018-02-19 12:49:01

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#10 2018-02-20 13:20:25

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#11 2018-02-20 15:08:59

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#12 2018-02-21 14:01:16

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#13 2018-05-08 17:17:28

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

#14 2018-05-08 22:58:15

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

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