Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

mdavies5 · 2014-06-07 04:44:20

I have a custom action "Run in terminal" to handle bash scripts. I have put a link to a bash script on my desktop.
If I right click the link on the desktop it shows 4 actions(Create archive, Open as Administrator, Make File executable, Create backup copy).
If I now right click the link in the Thunar/home/michael/desktop folder it shows the 5 actions. The same 4 above plus my "Run in terminal".
How can I make my custom action visible when I click the link on the desktop?

ToZ · 2014-06-07 12:24:36

What version of Xfce?
What version of Thunar?
What version of xfdesktop?

Is xfdesktop managing your desktop?

ps -ef | grep xfdesktop

On my system here (Xfce 4.10, Thunar 1.6.3, xfdesktop 4.10.2) what you describe above works as expected. I get the the "Run in Terminal" option when clicking on a linked bash script sitting on the desktop directly from the desktop (not from within Thunar, though it works from there as well).

Also on my second system where I build Xfce from git (latest development versions of all packages) the results are the same.

Perhaps its an issue with the distro you are using or the versioning/composition of the Xfce components? Or possibly the custom action itself? Can you post more info about the custom action (the properties you use) along with the names of the files (original and linked)?

EDIT: Just read your other post. Do you have nemo installed and is it set to handle the desktop? If so, this may be why its not working. Thunar custom actions would require xfdesktop to be managing the desktop.

Last edited by ToZ (2014-06-07 12:32:24)

mdavies5 · 2014-06-07 13:02:09

Toz, Thanks for response. Xfce 4.10, Thunar 1.6.3 installed from latest ISO Live image so if xfdesktop is default manager then that is what I was using. The command was "x-terminal-emulator %f" and the context menu had to show for "Other files" with pattern *.sh. My script file and the link were both named "fanspeed.sh". My reference to Nemo was referring to my normal distro LMDE to which I have now returned. It was not installed on LL.

ToZ · 2014-06-07 14:15:59

That same configuration works here.

To make sure that xfdesktop is managing the desktop, can you post back the results of:

ps -ef | grep xfdesktop | grep -v grep

ToZ · 2014-06-07 14:34:32

I just downloaded and booted up Linux Lite and saw the same thing you did. However, after I ran:

xfdesktop --reload

...the option appeared.

I'm not sure why it took a reload of xfdesktop to get it to display.

mdavies5 · 2014-06-08 02:23:45

This worked perfectly and I created a script to load at startup. I had the same problem with xfce in the Solydx distro using same versions of xfce and thunar. The difference was that Thunar had a context menu "Open with" with sub menus "Geany" and "xfce Terminal". Geany worked ok but Terminal just flashed and the script didn't run. Same happens on desktop or in Thunar. SolydX create a lot of custom actions but, strangely, these actions are not listed so I cannot check the code.
Anyway, this is just for general interest. Thanks again for solving my problem.

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#1 2014-06-07 04:44:20

Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

#2 2014-06-07 12:24:36

Re: Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

#3 2014-06-07 13:02:09

Re: Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

#4 2014-06-07 14:15:59

Re: Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

#5 2014-06-07 14:34:32

Re: Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

#6 2014-06-08 02:23:45

Re: Enabling Thunar context menus on desktop.

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