Nemo

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Nemo is a fork of GNOME Files (formerly known as Nautilus). It is also the default file manager of the Cinnamon desktop. Nemo is based on the Files 3.4 code. It was created as a response to the changes in Files 3.6 which saw features such as type ahead find and split pane view removed.

Installation

Install nemo from the official repositories.

Extensions

Some programs can add extra functionality to Nemo. Here are a few packages that do just that:

  • Nemo File Roller — File archiver extension for Nemo.
https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo-extensions/tree/master/nemo-fileroller || nemo-fileroller
  • Nemo Compare — An utility which compares two files using meld.
https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo-extensions/tree/master/nemo-compare || nemo-compareAUR
  • Nemo Preview — GtkClutter and Javascript-based quick previewer for Nemo.
https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo-extensions/tree/master/nemo-preview || nemo-preview
  • Nemo Seahorse — PGP encryption and signing extension for Nemo.
https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo-extensions/tree/master/nemo-seahorse || nemo-seahorse
  • Nemo Share — Samba extension for Nemo.
https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo-extensions/tree/master/nemo-share || nemo-share
  • Nemo Terminal — Embedded terminal window for Nemo
https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo-extensions/tree/master/nemo-terminal || nemo-terminal
  • RabbitVCS Nemo — Integrate RabbitVCS into Nemo.
http://www.rabbitvcs.org/ || rabbitvcs-nemoAUR

See AUR and nemo-extensions github repo for all extensions.

Configuration

Nemo is simple to configure graphically but not all options are in the preferences screen in Nemo. More options are available in the dconf-editor under org.nemo.

Set Nemo as default file browser

To set Nemo as the default file browser, execute the following: 

$ xdg-mime default nemo.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search

Show / hide desktop icons

To enable/disable desktop icons rendering feature in nemo, change the following setting true or false (false to hide, true to show): 

$ gsettings set org.nemo.desktop show-desktop-icons false

This fixes the console warning WARNING **: Can not determine workarea, guessing at layout for tiling window managers (such as i3).

Change the default terminal emulator for Nemo

gnome-terminal is set as the default, if it is not installed, neither the "Open in terminal" context menu entry feature will not work, nor shell scripts or terminal applications will not run from Nemo.

You can change the default setting with gsettings to the preferred terminal application. 

$ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec <terminal-name>

To be able to run shell scripts from Nemo, make sure you set up the proper argument for the preferred terminal application (the default is -x for gnome-terminal). 

$ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec-arg <argument>
Tip:

To use rxvt-unicode as the default terminal emulator, use the following: 

$ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec urxvt
$ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec-arg -e

Set keyboard shortcut for "Open in terminal"

If you want to edit keyboard shortcuts, you need first to change /org/cinnamon/desktop/interface/can-change-accels respectively /org/gnome/desktop/interface/can-change-accels if you are using Gnome desktop. You can do that with dconf-editor or with this code in terminal: 

$ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface can-change-accels true

or for Gnome: 

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface can-change-accels true

Edit or create ~/.gnome2/accels/nemo and add the following line (replacing "F4" with the desired key combination): 

~/.gnome2/accels/nemo
(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/DirViewActions/OpenInTerminal" "F4")

<Alt>, <Primary>, and <Shift> can be used as key modifiers (for example, <Primary><Shift>t).

Tips and tricks

Nemo Actions

Nemo allows the user to add new entries to the context menu. The file /usr/share/nemo/actions/sample.nemo_action contains an example of a Nemo action. Directories to place custom action files:

  • /usr/share/nemo/actions/ for system-wide actions
  • ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/ for user actions

Action files must have the .nemo_action file extension.

Clam Scan

clamscan.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Name=Clam Scan
Comment=Clam Scan

Exec=gnome-terminal -x sh -c "clamscan -r %F | less"

Icon-Name=bug-buddy

Selection=Any

Extensions=dir;exe;dll;zip;gz;7z;rar;

Moving files

archive.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Archive %N
Comment=Archiving %N will add .archive to the object.
Exec=<archive.py %F>
Selection=S
Extensions=any;
archive.py
#! /usr/bin/python2 -OOt
import sys
import os
import shutil

filename = sys.argv[0]
print "Running " + filename
print "With the following arguments:"
for arg in sys.argv:
    if filename == arg:
        continue
    else:
        print arg
        #os.rename('%s','%s.archive') % (arg,arg)
        shutil.move(arg, arg+".archive")

Meld compare

compare-save-for-later.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Compare later
Comment=Save file for comparison later.
Exec=<compare.sh save %F>
Icon-Name=meld
Selection=S
Extensions=any
compare-with-saved.nemo_action
[Nemo Action]
Active=true
Name=Compare with saved element
Comment=Compare %F saved file or directory.
Exec=<compare.sh compare %F>
Icon-Name=meld
Selection=S
Extensions=any
compare.sh
#!/bin/bash
savedfile=/var/tmp/compare-save-for-later.$USER
comparator=meld
if [ "$1" == "save" ]; then
	shift
	echo "$*" > "$savedfile"
elif [ "$1" == "compare" ]; then
	shift
	"$comparator" "$*" "$(cat $savedfile)"
fi

Filenames containing spaces

By default, Nemo does not escape filenames. This means that actions for multiple files with some names containing spaces are broken. To fix this, use Quote=double.

Troubleshooting

Thumbnail generation errors shown in the console

By default, nemo does not generate thumbnails for certain video files due to licensing or patent problems (AVC encoded mp4 and mkv files for example). As such, you might see errors similar to the following in the console: 

CinnamonDesktop-WARNING **: Error creating thumbnail for file:///home/username/video.mp4: Unrecognized image file format

for mp4 and other video files.

To fix this, ensure that you have a thumbnailer for video files installed—see File manager functionality#Thumbnail previews—and also ensure you have the necessary GStreamer packages installed that will allow the video file to be played.

Tip: Once thumbnail generation for video files is working, you can use nemo-preview to preview video files.

Desktop icons not shown

Since Nemo v3.4.2, the desktop is managed by nemo-desktop. This can be configured to auto start by copying the file /usr/share/applications/nemo-autostart.desktop to ~/.config/autostart/nemo-autostart.desktop and removing the line OnlyShowIn=X-Cinnamon;.

(GNOME) Opening a single file opens all files

Nemo was changed since v5.0.1 to allow the sort order to be maintained when passing multiple files to the image viewer. There is also a new GNOME setting to enable or disable it.

To fix this, run: 

$ gsettings set org.nemo.preferences image-viewers-with-external-sort "[]"

See https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/2771 for more information.