How can I restores Nautilus' old open with context menu?

Question

On Ubuntu prior to 16.10 Nautilus provided the following open with context menu:

Under Ubuntu 16.10 it now looks as follows:

How can I restore the old open with context menu for quicker access to the applications?

Answer 1

There is no way to enable the old Open With version in Nautilus 3.20. There's no possibility to do it by changing it in the Preferences, there is also no option to do it using the dconf-editor tool.

That is due to how Nautilus 3.20, as part of the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment was designed. As there is no plugin available in the repositories to add this feature, you'll have to use it 'as it is'.

Of course it might be possible to tune the software by changing the code ... but this might break some other things and the main functionality still exists, you just have to make a few clicks more.

Answer 2

Another solution for Gnome >= 3.20, like Gnome 3.38 with Ubuntu 20.10, is to use nautilus-open-with-menu that bring a automatic list of applications to open-with.