How do I quickly move a file from one tab to the other in PCManFM

Question

If I use F3 in Nautilus, I right-click on the file and select "move to other pane". How do I move a file from one tab to the other in PCManFM?

Answer 1

To move a file between folders open in two adjacent tabs:

Press Ctrl, and without releasing it, press one after the other: X, Tab, V (then release Ctrl).

• This is just Ctrl+X to cut, Ctrl+Tab to switch tabs and Ctrl+V to paste, thus accomplishing a move to the next tab.

Do the same using a single shortcut (but still two or three key presses)

1. xdotool allows automation of keyboard and mouse clicks/movements; install it with sudo apt-get install xdotool

2. Copy and paste the below to an sh file, say pcmanmove.sh in your home directory:

   #!/bin/bash
   
   xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+x
   sleep 0.125
   xdotool key --clearmodifiers Ctrl+Tab
   sleep 0.125
   xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
   

   Make it executable with chmod +x ~/pcmanmove.sh

3. Open Settings...Keyboard, and go to the Shortcuts tab. Create a custom shortcut, naming it whatever you want, and setting the "Command" path to /home/username/pcmanmove.sh. Click Apply. The right-column will say "Disable", click on it and you'll see "New Accelerator": press your shortcut key combo. I chose Ctrl+Alt+X, for example.

   

4. Now, with two tabs open in PCmanFM, press the custom shortcut to accomplish the move in one-quarter of a second! ;)

Answer 2

It seems it's a common bug on PCManFM or something, which is commented over here.

You can switch Tabs using [Alt] and a number from the alpha-numeric keyboard, starting with 1 for the first tab, 2 for the second one and so on.

Nevertheless, it might not work when BloqNum is turned on in your numeric keyboard, which seems to be fixed by a patch provided in the mentioned site. I tried to apply the patch but it seems to be a patch that should be applied to the PCManFM source code, so I can't inform if this is going to work.

Good luck!