Open locations through application finder?

Question

It would be really fast to open most used folders by an application finder or something like that. It worked quite well in windows pressing win+r and type name of a folder shortcut in System32 folder.

Is it possible to do something like that in Xubuntu too?

E.g. Win+R to open application finder (or something similar) and type "Do" to open dowloads folder?

How would you do that? Now I need to open default folder and then click to a left panel. I understand it's easier to assign a shortcut to each location but that's not managable if you have many locations. I don't really like docks neither because Cairo always got stucked and did some troubles to me...

How would you solve this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Sebastian

Answer 1

On Ubuntu Saucy 13.10, Win+R does exactly what you want, it opens the Application Finder in Xbuntu (XFCE).

exo-desktop-item-edit --create-new --name='downloads' --command='thunar /root/shared/downloads' ~/.local/share/applications

A GUI will pop up to edit the item further. The item will appear in a Application submenu called 'Other'

Then simply hit Win+R -> 'item name'

to setup a lot of these, add this to your .bashrc

function launchy(){
    if [ -z "$1" ]; then
        echo "missing abs path"
        return
    fi
    exo-desktop-item-edit --create-new --name="$1" --comment="thunar $1" ~/.local/share/applications
}

For some reason, the --command arg is not working, so I just cut paste from comment to command in the GUI.

Usage: launchy /root/logs

win+R logs

Answer 2

http://launchy.net/ is amazing on Windows and also 'works' on linux (was a little buggy).

A nice hack, you 'add favourites' eg: your download folder, in Explorer window, then add 'C:\Documents and Settings\user\Favourites' to the Launchy index, then Alt+Space 'download' jumps to that folder.

The same setup can be done via symlinks on linux, although less intuitive than the 'add favorite' button.

Answer 3

Well, solution that actually works immediately is to use "custom actions" in Application Finder preferences.

Pattern: name_you_want_to_type
Command: pcmanfm '/home/user/folder/folder'

Works like a charm.

So you can easily "rename" applications too.

Pattern: writer
Command: /usr/bin/wps %f

(for Kingston Writer, e.g.)

Done.