fedora-nautilus-typeahead-rpm

Automatically builds a GNOME Files (Nautilus) RPM with type-ahead functionality for Fedora Linux.

✨ The resulting RPM is available for download under Releases for Fedora 39/40 (Workstation/Silverblue).

Description

The default behavior on Nautilus nowadays is to type to search, i.e., to start a search when typing a character. This package simply applies a pre-existing patch developed by the community to restore the type-ahead functionality, i.e., browsing/navigating on key press, the default behavior on many file managers.

The new functionality may be toggled on the Preferences window (Search on type ahead):

Install

On Fedora Workstation

To install the package on Fedora Workstation, use the following command:

dnf swap nautilus ./nautilus-typeahead-*.rpm

This will replace one package with the other and avoid file conflicts.

On Fedora Silverblue

To layer the package on Silverblue, use the following command:

rpm-ostree install --force-replacefiles ./nautilus-typeahead-*.rpm

The installed version will be replaced and type-ahead functionality will be enabled. Restart your machine in order to boot into the updated deployment.

Building the RPM file

Simply run the script to install prerequisites with dnf and build Nautilus:

bash build-nautilus-typeahead-rpm.sh

Note: on Silverblue, run the command above inside a toolbox to avoid the need to layer the required dependencies on your base system.

A new file nautilus-typeahead-*.rpm will be created by the end of the process.

Clean up dependencies

After building the RPM file, you may remove any installed dependencies with:

dnf history undo $(dnf history list --reverse | tail -n1 | cut -f1 -d\|)

The command above will undo the changes made on the last dnf execution.

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Notes

• ❓ For more information on the issue, please check the corresponding ticket (one of many) on GitLab.

• ❤️ Thanks to all contributors responsible for developing and maintaining the type-ahead patch to restore this functionality to Nautilus!

Contributors

• Contributor (original patch code): Jan de Groot jgc@archlinux.org
• Contributor (original package maintainer): Ian Hernández badwolfie@archlinux.info
• Contributor (updated Xavier's patch for 43.2): Bryan Lai bryanlais@gmail.com
• Contributor (updated Xavier's patch for 44.1): DragoonAethis dragoon@dragonic.eu
• Contributor (fix for backspace going to parent folder): Jeremy Bicha jbicha@debian.org
• Contributor (current patch code): Xavier Claessens xavier.claessens@collabora.com
• AUR maintainer: Albert Vaca Cintora albertvaka@gmail.com
• PPA maintainer: Lubomir Brindza lubomir@brindza.sk