Open Konsole from Nautilus

The following entry is based on the post “Nautilus Script to Launch a Terminal” by Linerd.

Problem

For navigating in the file system, I usually use Midnight Commander. However, sometimes it’s useful to switch to a graphical file manager, which is Nautilus under Gnome. For instance, browsing images with Nautilus is easier since it shows thumbnails. After using Nautilus for a while, I want to continue my work in a terminal (my favorite is konsole) in the current directory. How to do that?

Related work

There is a plugin in the repositories called “nautilus-open-terminal”. By default, the plugin calls gnome-terminal and it seems konsole is not supported :(

Solution

In this post, I found a simple and working solution. Here is the script:

#!/bin/bash
#
#  Nautilus script - terminal-here
#  This script will open a GNOME Terminal in the current directory.
#  Written by Linerd in August, 2009 - http://tuxtweaks.com/
#
#  Modification:
#  * konsole-here
#  * Open the Konsole terminal emulator in the current directory.
#
#  Save this script under $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/terminal-here. Make sure that
#  you give this file executable permission. { chmod +x terminal-here }
#
#  This program is free software.  It is distributed in the hope
#  that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
#  the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
#  PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.
######################################################################

if [ "$NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI" == "x-nautilus-desktop:///" ]; then
        DIR=$HOME"/Desktop"
else
        DIR=`echo $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI | sed 's/^file:\/\///' | sed 's/%20/ /g'`
fi

# gnome-terminal --working-directory="$DIR"
konsole --workdir "$DIR"

exit 0

The konsole modification was suggested by James in a comment in the previously referred post.

Installation: Save it in the directory $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts under the name konsole-here.

Usage: Right click in Nautilus, then choose Scripts -> konsole-here.

Launch Nautilus from terminal

When I want to launch Nautilus from the terminal, I use the alias “nh”, which stands for “nautilus here”, i.e. open Nautilus in the current directory:

alias nh='nautilus . 2>/dev/null'

Simply put this line in your ~/.bashrc file.

With this alias and with the script above, you can easily switch back and forth between Konsole and Nautilus.

Credits

• Linerd, original script with gnome-terminal support
• James, konsole patch

Trouble

There is one thing that troubles me. If I open a konsole from Nautilus, the newly opened konsole gets no focus :( That is, you cannot type immediately, first you need to click on its window. However, if you call the script from the Desktop, konsole gets the focus… If someone has a solution for this, please let me know.

Update (20110304): I think I have a solution for the problem. After switching off the visual effects, konsole gets the focus. Damn… Here is how to get rid of the eyecandy: right click on Desktop -> Change Desktop Background -> Visual Effects tab, select None.