How to add "open with custom command" option in right click menu of Nautilus

Sometimes while going to open a file from Nautilus I do not find the intended application in "open with" menu on right click. Or the desired application remains hidden in a long list of applications. It becomes difficult to find it quickly.

Prior to Ubuntu 11.04 there was a nice feature "Use a custom command" under "open with" menu on right click on a file. One could able write a command in the box to open a file with a custom application. This option is no longer available in Nautilus after Ubuntu 10.10.

Question:

Can I have a similar "Use a custom command" dialogue box on Nautilus so that I can open a file writing any custom command in a box as shown in the above picture?

Here is a small Nautilus script which gives you a "Use a custom command" dialogue box on Nautilus.

The Script

Save the following script as Open with custom command in the following directory

• ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/ (Ubuntu 13.04 or above)
• ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ (Ubuntu 12.10 and below)

#!/bin/bash
var=$(zenity --entry \
--title="Add Application" \
--text="Use a custom command" \
--width="320")
if [ $? -eq 0 ] && [ "$var" ]; then
    $var "$1"
else
    exit 0
fi

• Give the script execution permission. It is important, otherwise no change will take place. You can use in terminal,

chmod +x ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/Open\ with\ custom\ command

Or you can do it from GUI. Right click on the script, then go to Properties >> Permissions and check the box corresponds to Execute to give the script execution permission.

How it looks like

After that when you right click on a file you could see an option Scripts followed by another option under script Open with custom command.

When you select the option Open with custom command, you will get a dialogue box like,

You can write a command in the box to open the file.

Usage

You can open any file by entering corresponding application's command only in the dialogue box.

For example you can open a .txt file using gedit or a .pdf file writing evince in the dialogue box.

Some Other Usage

Open file as root:

If you want to open a file as root, just use gksudo before your command. To open a .txt file as root you can use in the dialogue box,

gksudo gedit

Opening an unknown file:

If you are not sure which application to use to open an unknown file, you can use in the dialogue box,

xdg-open

Opening a file with a Terminal Application:

If you want to open a text file using vi, you can use in the dialogue box,

gnome-terminal -x vi

Note:

To use gksudo you need to have gksu installed. In Ubuntu 13.04 onwards it is not install by default. You can install it using,

sudo apt-get install gksu