Xfce Forum

romullo

Member

Registered: 2015-04-23

Posts: 3

Thunar file name word break in view icon mode

This is my first post, so excuse some mistake.

Is there some way to configure word breaks for thunar in view icon mode?

I have to manage file names like "this_is_a_long_file_name_with_undescore" that are displayed like:

this_is_a_long_file_nam
   e_with_undescore

Also, "FirefoxWallpaper.png" is displayed like:

FirefoxWallpaper.pn
           g

I think that the following would be better:

  this_is_a_long_file_
name_with_undescore

FirefoxWallpaper.
       png

I would like to define "_" and "." as a word break for file names.

MountainDewManiac

Member

From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez

Registered: 2013-03-24

Posts: 1,115

Re: Thunar file name word break in view icon mode

Have you tried using spaces? They're certainly easier to read (most "people" languages use a space to separate words, as evidenced by this thread, lol). Or... if you are still regularly using an operating system that cannot use spaces in filenames (IDK, MS-DOS 3.2?), CBA to enclose such filenames within quotation marks in the terminal, and/or do not wish to have to deal with the %20 in URL ( / et cetera) addresses - and, of course, assuming that your filenames get used as web page names often enough for this to even be a factor - then why not use the hyphen (aka "dash") character?

Some entities (Google, as an example) will combine the two words which are separated by an underscore into one word. I suspect that Xfce (et al) might be doing the same thing, which would explain why you are seeing breaks where you do not want them instead of where you do. I also suspect that, if you switch the "_"s in your filenames to "-"s, that you will see more readable breaks. Suspect, as opposed to know because I use spaces .

I have also read something about "the underscore is traditionally considered a word character by the \w regex operator" but do not know how relevant that is (if at all) because I'm not sure what that is .

EDIT: I just created a test file with these names:
ThisIsAVeryLongFilenameWhichHasNoSpaces
This_Is_a_Very_Long_Filename_Which_Has_No_Spaces
This-Is-a-Very-Long-Filename-Which-Has-No-Spaces
This Is a Very Long Filename Which Has No Spaces
In the first, I used "camel case" to designate word-starts (and was unsure about whether or not it was proper to capitilize the a/A) because I read that some people actually use this method by choice (and here I thought it was just evidence that they were using a cheap, old cell phone as their input device ). In the last, I kept the wording even though it obviously does contain spaces. I then switched to the "icon" view in Thunar - and realized yet again that this view includes way too little information to be of much use - and saw that, out of the four filenames, the last two were properly broken at the end of the line. I also saw that they were the easiest to read (with the fourth being easiest - as it is shown in a form that people use when writing). No surprises.

Regards,
MDM

Last edited by MountainDewManiac (2015-04-23 16:19:32)

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