[Caja] Hotkey for move file to other pane

Hello,

is there a hoteky for moving the currently selected file(s) to the other pane?

Because I am not sure of the wording: with “pane” I refer to the second folder view I get with F3

Thanks,
Nicolas

Hi @7even, I know exactly what you mean and haven’t found one. As a keyboard navigator, I’ve never found the dual panes very friendly and use 2 Caja instances instead.

You may have noticed there’s a context menu under “Move to…” for mouse users when they right-click on a file. If I had a choice of one hotkey to add I’d chose this one. Both move and copy to other pane is already in that menu.

But that said, maybe someone will jump in and educate us both. :grin:

1 Like

I think you guys should submit that as a feature request on the github repo for caja. (New Issue)

I've looked for a way to do this but I think it'd require scripting at least.

On a related mater I've not found any documentation of the "Use a custom command" option of the "Open with" context menu.
For instance: if you write

command %f

it will invoke command on the currently selected file, but I haven't found where that "%f" argument is documented. (I was wondering if there was such a thing as %P or other to specify the current pane)

2 Likes

I created a feature request on github, as proposed by @ouroumov: https://github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues/681

Thank you both for your input!

@Bill_MI I know exactly what you mean, as I wasn’t happy with the previous (aka nemo, nautilus, dunno of previous caja) behaviour of switching the keyboard focus between the panes. But may I invite you to re-evaluate the current caja behaviour? I can tell you (with tears of joy in my eyes), that F6 now switches the keyboard focus between the two panes only! Yesss, I said only! No more hijacking of the keyboard focus to “somewhere you have to figure out and different, depending on unknown conditions”! :raised_hands:

1 Like

Hehe… good find on F6! And it’s working in 16.04 with out-of-sync selecting on first use but very functional. :grinning:

Feature request support in place.

We all tend to want what affects us most. Someday, I may feature request a sensible focus when backing out of a Crtl+F search (Alt+LeftArrow). Focus doesn’t go back where it started but to a very useless area. :anguished:

Just curious. Did you also start with Norton Commander? I have a VM of MSDOS 6 with NC5.

Hey thanks for the instant support!

Yes, of course, back in the stone age of MS DOS, I used the famous norton commander as well. When being forced to use the Windows operating system (@work), I use the 7-zip File Manager.

Now with Mate and Caja I do use both, the 2 pane view and multiple tabs - according to the circumstances. And - in rare cases - I use these features combined; but, as this requires a big part of concentration and orientation, this is rare (though really useful sometimes).

I use tabs because the pane makes everything too small.

Maybe something like this??

1: Check/enable can-change-accels using the dConf editor in org->mate->desktop->interface.
2: Open Caja with an extra pane (F3) and select one or more files/folders in one of the panes.
3: Using the Caja Edit menu at the top, NOT the right click context menu, go to but don’t click Edit->Move to->Other pane
4: With your cursor hovering over the ‘Other pane’ button, input the hotkey you want to use. I used Ctrl+Shift+M and it works as desired.
5: Uncheck/disable can-change-accels in dConf to avoid accidental changes.
6: Bob’s your uncle.

2 Likes

This simply is awesome! Thanks a lot.

1 Like

Hi @Brendan_Garnham, I agree with @7even. YES this is awesome!

But it was bugging me about editable menus. Where did I see that before? Turns out right here:

I confirmed this is the control of that magic entry. But now we found out how to use it, too.

I also found some bad news. I looked in a VM of 16.10 and the above is no longer in Appearances. The dconf entry is still there but it doesn't seem to work. I suspect this feature is a casualty of the gtk3 conversion. :anguished:

1 Like

Good to know the UI option. Following the informations in your screenshot, I found this option on my system too.
But as it wasn’t in the Caja settings but in the system appearance settings, I wonder if this is Caja, Mate or basically GTK related?
Sorry for this, but I am lost in relating options and features to the originating techniques…

Hi @Bill_MI, I tried the same method in 16.10 in a VM and confirmed the same issue with the new combination not registering in Caja. I suspect this may be just a quirk of using a VM as key combinations can be a bit tricky in a VM. Perhaps someone has 16.10 installed on a non-virtual machine to test it. I’m running 16.04.1 and tend to stick with the LTS’s.

Usually switching the VM in fullscreen mode makes all inputs being redirected to the VM. Worth a try. :slight_smile:

1 Like

It seems to be Mate related and I was surprised at the Mate apps I found to work in 16.04. I tested all these in a 16.04 VM, too:

Caja
Pluma
Mate Terminal
Mate Disk Usage Analyzer
Mate System Monitor
Eye of Mate

@Brendan_Garnham, I hope it is the VM but reasonably sure it is not even though gtk3 could be totally different. I also notice the dconf editor has a dramatic UI change.

2 Likes

So you're aware, I did attempt full screen, many different keys and apps and even reboots. With the multiple levels of key mapping across 2 o/s' it's always possible I didn't do the right combo but I have to stick with reasonable assurance it isn't working. :confounded:

All the evidence of the gtk3 conversion shows how extensive it is to redo so much code. The more I look at 16.10 the more it's obvious a LOT was involved and some things, like the dconf editor UI, were better redone from scratch than trying to convert exactly - it's very very different now.

2 Likes

Yes, this setting is simply ignored in GTK+3. See the doc here. That's why we removed it from Appearance as well in GTK+3 builds.

Though we could keep it there for GTK+2 apps, I'm not sure... :thinking: