Can I make a folder display the contents of several other folders (like a Windows "Library" folder)?

Question

Windows 7 has a concept they call "Libraries." It's a folder that links to other folders. The "libraried" folder will display the contents of all the folders it links to. So if folder-A contains video of Jimmy's October Soccer games and folder-B contains video of Jimmy's November Soccer games, I can link folder-A and folder-B to the Library-folder and view thumbnails of all the October & November videos in one folder.

I find this useful and was wondering if it's possible to configure a similar thing in Ubuntu? It seems like I should be able to use mount to pull this off somehow but I don't know how.

Answer 1

This sounds like the concept of Virtual Folders that has been part of Gnome since v2.14

Let me explain:

My Music folder has several folders of MP3 files (not choosy about my music!)

As you can see - you can search for all mp3 files and then save that search:

Now you can open that search from Nautilus - any new files appearing in the searched folders will automatically appear in the Nautilus view when you hit the refresh button.

Answer 2

We will be adding a submenu "Add to Library" to the Scripts menu.

First, check your version of Nautilus:

nautilus --version

Depending on the output, open folder:

• ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts - for versions of Nautilus >= 3.6
• ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts - for versions of Nautilus < 3.6

In this folder, create a file Add to Library and add the following code to the file:

#!/bin/bash
IFS='
'
sourceDir="`zenity --file-selection --directory --title="Select Source Directory"`"
if [[ -z "$sourceDir" ]]; then
exit 0
fi
destDir=$(echo "$NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI" | sed -n 's/[a-z]*.\/\///p')
cd $sourceDir
for file in *; do
ln -s "$sourceDir/$file" "$destDir/$file"
done

Open terminal and give execution rights to the file:

chmod +x "/path/to/script/Add to Library"

Note: Visit the Scripts folder to let Nautilus know about the Script:

Right click (anywhere) -> Scripts -> Open Scripts Folder

Now, go to the folder that you want to use as a Library.

Right click (anywhere, inside the folder) -> Scripts -> Add to Library Choose the Folder that you want to include in the Library - Click OK.

You should be able to see links to all the Files/Folder of the Source Directory. Add as many sources as you want.

Answer 3

This is hardly ideal, but it is a workaround based on fossfreedom's post (sorry, I don't have the reputation to post a comment on an answer).

Create a folder somewhere that you don't mind keeping it, but is out of the way. Put links to all the folders you would like in your library into this newly created folder.

Now, do a nautilus search in the newly created folder, and search for " " (i.e., search for the space character, which for some reason seems to be the wildcard in nautilus searches). This will search for everything in that folder recursively (and following the links).

Save the search as fossfreedom described.

This has the advantage of getting all files, not just ones matching a specific search term, and the advantage of only looking in specified folders. It still suffers the disadvantage of not maintaining the file structure (I think).

Having said all that, I can't seem to open a saved search in 11.10.