[Thunar-dev] thunar custom actions menu grouping

[Jelle de Jong]

Erlend Davidson wrote:
> 
> Jelle de Jong wrote:
>> Jelle de Jong wrote:
>>   
>>> I have been thinking about this problem quite a while now.
>>>
>>> I want to use freedesktop.org *.desktop standardisation files to
>>> integrate scripts in the right menu of the great Thunar file manager.
>>>
>>> Wouldn't it be great to have this functionality?
>>>
>>> I have around 30 self made scripts integrated into Thunar. The problem
>>> is they are not grouped nicely in categories. I would like to be able to
>>> create sub menu's to sort the scripts.
>>>
>>> I think the standard *.desktop files can be used for this, just like in
>>> the application menu's. We can probably keep the current configure
>>> custom action system. Only let Thunar scan the files that are in the
>>> actions list. When these files are of the .desktop format then read them
>>> and change the menu structure depending on the contains. I only don´t
>>> know how the argument passing should go.
>>>
>>> Would somebody be willing to investigate this idea and maybe realise it?
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Jelle
>>>     
>> Hello everybody,
>>
>> I have sent this mail some time ago, but nobody replied on the mail. How
>> should I deal with this? Does nobody want sub-menus in the thunar file
>> manager?
> Well I think Aurelio's SVN plugin also needs it.  I think it is a good 
> idea, I wonder if it is possible with proper extensions (as opposed to 
> UCA's)?  The trouble with putting it in UCA is that it will complicate 
> things quite a lot: also on the user-interface side.

So why would we not simple use the existing freedesktop.org standard for
the *.desktop files and menus. It is documented and proven to work. Just
make a script folder in the users Thunar preference folder in its home
directory. Then scan this directory for the *.desktop files and build
the sub-menu for Thunar. The menu information can be cached so
performance loss will be minimal. I think it is extremely important that
we use a very standard way of implementing a sub-menu, because this
increase the change that all other file managers out there, will also
support the sub-menu implementation.

Best regards,

Jelle