[Suggestion] Add ability to reorder all items in Nautilus sidebar

[jrom99]

Now that there is a new version of Nautilus, I guess I should resurrect my previous thread ([Suggestion] Hide "Starred" side panel in Nautilus when no file is starred).

The new sidebar gives excessive highlight to both “Starred” and “Network” panels. I don’t use the “Starred” feature, and I very rarely use the “Other Locations” feature, which could be easily ignored as it was placed at the very bottom.

The new update changed the position of XDG dirs in the sidebar, and also added the ability to remove them, but it’s really messing my workflow having the “Home” folder separated from the other folders.

In the previous thread, it was explained that it would hurt discoverability to hide the Starred panel by default if there were no starred items, and also that adding a config to outright remove it would go against GNOME principles. I think the same applies to the Network panel (specially since it has a new widget in the bottom part).

I wish I could at least have the ability to move both Starred and Network to the bottom so that I can ignore them and keep my bookmarks near my Home folder.

In the mean time, I’d like to ask if anyone knows of a way to hide these panels. I tried the css in GTK inspector, but was unable to totally hide them. I also tried to find the relevant part within the nautilus-window.ui file, but was unable to.

[Sid]

I think it makes sense to have XDG dirs associated with the top group (with HOME etc) than with bookmarks. That way there is clear separation between user bookmarks and system entries (if that’s the right term).

[p3732 (Peter Eisenmann)]

Hi, every now and then there are discussions about creating a new view to replace Home as the default. Should this ever happen, then it would probably solve your grievances over Home being a folder while the remaining system dictated entries are not.

[jrom99]

But I do like Home being a folder as well as my starting position when I open Nautilus.

What I dislike is having to deal with “Starred”, which I never use, and “Other Locations…”/“Network”, which I very rarely use (I think the last time I needed something from there was at least a year ago, and it was to check my disk usage).

[p3732 (Peter Eisenmann)]

Well, I am sorry to say, but I don’t think making them optional is gonna happen. Network is a core functionality and Starring is too (despite the user experience being improvable).

Having a fix layout of these core sidebar entries also has benefits for what to expect e.g. in issue reports or for user support.

[jrom99]

Even though they are “core functionalities”, they are easily configurable in different file managers, which also follow a more logic order: which places Network at the bottom and uses a “Bookmark first” approach instead of a item pane that opens your favorites/starred.

MacOS Finder

It has the following order by default:

1. Favorites: a superset of Nautilus “Bookmarks”, allowing for applications
2. iCloud: equivalent to Nautilus “Network”, I think
3. Tags: a superset of Nautilus “Starred”, allowing colors and types
4. Other locations: equivalent to Nautilus mounted drives section

It’s worth noting that there is a lot more highlight to the bookmarks section than to tags/starred or network. And also that you can reorder these items so that the favorites section can hold items from other sections. And also that you can hide the sidebar whenever you want and not only when Nautilus is at a specific width.

How to customize Sidebar in the macOS Finder

Windows 10/11 Explorer

It seems to have changed (for the worse) since Windows 11, with a lot more focus on DropBox, as well as moving favorites and recent to a single pane called “Home”. This “Home” pane seems to be configurable through regedit.

That said, you can expect one of the following orders:

1. Quick Access: which roughly translates to Nautilus “Bookmarks”
2. OneDrive: a subset of Nautilus Network, I think
3. This PC: a superset of Nautilus “Other Locations”, combining a tree view of the file system
4. Network: equivalent to Nautilus Network

Or:

1. Home: a starting panel containing Favorites, Recent and “Quick Access”, which would roughly translates to Nautilus “Starred” + “Bookmarks”
2. DropBox : subset of Nautilus “Network”, seems to update automatically with new accounts
3. This PC: tree view of the file system
4. Mounted drives: hidden by default
5. Network

I don’t have access to a Windows PC, so I’m not sure whether the DropBox item can be removed, but it seems that the Network one can be.

Other file managers

I don’t use Nemo but it seems to place “Network” at the bottom. And KDE’s Dolphin has its own thing going on with Places at the top (superset of Nautilus Bookmarks), then “Remote” (equivalent to Nautilus Network) as well as other panels.

Nautilus is the oddball here in having A LOT of highlight for the Network item pane, and also having a Starred item pane that hides more than it shows compared to just listing bookmarks.

That said, if a user has more items than they can place on the sidebar, then a tagging system similar to MacOS Finder would be a lot more useful than the Starred approach.

I personally don’t use the favorites/starred/tagging method because the bookmarks fit my current needs. Before this update, I could easily ignore the Network item pane, and if I so wanted I could change some files to hide the Starred one (without having to recompile Nautilus).

Both approaches are now unavailable, and I know that GNOME devs won’t add the ability to hide those items, so at the very least I’d like to be able to move them to the bottom so that these items are not needlessly taking my attention away.

[p3732 (Peter Eisenmann)]

Unlike all these apps, nautilus does not have collapsible sections in the sidebar. IMO that makes it simpler to use. A trade-off for this is that the potentially long list of bookmarks is placed second, so that core functionality is not scrolled off upon opening.

Nautilus also carries many legacy things with it, due to compatibility with the GTK file chooser. Only “real” folders can be favorites/bookmarks. This prevents treating places such as “Network” as a favorite (as Finder does it). That would be the best angle to further allow for more user freedom in the sidebar ordering. I don’t think that is gonna happen all that soon though, as nautilus only just received file chooser capabilities of its own.

[jrom99]

And yet with the current update nautilus is again out of sync with the file chooser, since the file chooser uses the previous layout (xdg dirs + bookmarks). So this new update was able to bring less consistency between components while also being less consistent with its own paradigms, since it separates elements that are usually grouped together (home + xdg dirs).

I know that hiding these sidebar items is not happening since it would hide “core” functionality, and I am totally fine with the current Home default view (honestly, changing it would be my final straw before installing another file manager or forking nautilus). My proposal of adding the ability to reorder the items is not influenced by either of these.

From a coding standpoint, Nautilus’s limitation in that only folders can be bookmarks doesn’t influence this either, since I’m not proposing turning Network or Starred into bookmarks, or adding new items (starred files as bookmarks).

The only real drawback I can see is the one you mentioned for issue reports, which is easily dealt with with screenshots, which is the current recommendation in the issue template.

An added “advantage” is that this action is currently more reversible than removing bookmarks and starred items, since you can do it without putting your mouse outside the sidebar or navigating to other folders, so it just extends upon current expectations instead of subverting them.

Honestly, what bothers me is that gnome seems to be more and more mac-like in appearance while offering less customization ability than it. There are lots of places where the lack of settings is pretty obvious, such as the inability to configure screenshots default location, or any way to customize the quick settings menu, but are available in other OSs (as mentioned in the relevant issues).