There are plenty of new and improved features to enjoy in Nautilus 3.22, which is on course to ship as part of GNOME 3.22 late next month.
GNOME’s Carlos Soriano offers an introduction to many of the changes the file manager has received, including improvements in renaming multiple files and folder creation, a new set of ‘zoom’ buttons (the slider has gone), and an improved “hamburger” menu.
Renaming Multiple Files
A big missing feature coming to Nautilus is the ability to rename multiple files at once without using an external tool.
Carlos reasons that the design and usability of File’s approach makes it “the best batch renaming tool we could have”.
For one, the bulk rename feature uses file metadata to add context to potential renaming, like track number or file creation date; lets you create or use a template; and offers the always handy ‘find and replace’ option.
This logic is also applied to the new ‘create folder from selected files’ option.
“When selecting multiple files and creating a folder with them, we will search for a common prefix and use that as default name,” Carlos explains.
Compressed Files Integration
As we’ve reported on before, Nautilus 3.22 adds native, integrated file compression and decompression. No more handing off to File Roller or another tool when you want to get at the contents of a .tar.gz, etc.
This brings a wealth of improvements to the whole act of interacting with compressed archives. You get a handy progress bar, undo support, and a handy archive creation wizard.
If you’re a big fan of File Roller (or any other decompression utility that’s available) you can continue to use it as before. A setting in Nautilus’ preferences allows you to disable this ‘extract on open’ behaviour.
Do You Like These Changes?
Ubuntu 16.04 ships with Nautilus 3.14, while Ubuntu 16.10, due in October, will ship with Nautilus 3.20.
The GNOME 3 Staging PPA should provide Ubuntu users with a way of getting the latest Nautilus release ahead of Ubuntu 17.04.
Let us know what you think of these changes in the comments below.
Look out for a slew of information on everything that’s new and improved in GNOME 3.22 over the coming weeks!