Stephen O'Sullivan

One of the rare advantages I find in Windows XP (strangely lost in Vista...) over Linux is the "Thumbnail View" option in Explorer, which replaces icons with thumbnail images. The Gnome desktop natively shows thumbnails of all images and films without the need to change view, as in XP, but the one advantage XP has over Gnome is that it also shows a thumbnail of the folder. With an image called folder.jpg in it, the folder thumbnail shows that image. This is not overly useful in most circumstances, but is excellent for viewing music albums.

It is possible in Gnome to change the icon of an individual folder to an image quite simply in properties, but with thousands of albums, that seemed like work...

NOTE: for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic, see updated post here

However, I have found a very simple solution here. Ubuntu user fifo has created a very simple python script which you can download from the first link, above. The script basically automates the process of converting a folder icon to, by default, an image in that folder by the name of either folder.jpg or Folder.jpg.

To run the script, navigate to folder you have saved it to (in the terminal, e.g. "cd Desktop"), and type:

$ python custom_icon.py -R /folder/folder (replacing "folder" for the directory you want to convert)

The option -R means that not only the folder you enter, but all its subfolders will be converted.

To refresh Nautilus:

$ nautilus -q



An excellent and simple solution.

UPDATE:

The script as written assumes all the folder images are .jpg in lower case, but if some of your images are .Jpg or .JPG, then simply change the line:

default="[Ff]older.jpg",

to

default="[Ff]older.[Jj][Pp][Gg]",

This script can be downloaded here (all credit to fifo for writing this, I just added the default="[Ff]older.[Jj][Pp][Gg]", line...)

UPDATE 2:

This script does not work in Karmic Koala, but I have recently found a Cover Thumbnailer here that seems to work perfectly. Installation was via a .deb file, so could not have been simpler. I logged out and back in, and it worked. For music albums it adds a cd jewel case frame. For pictures and photographs it adds a photo album frame. I presume it uses the directory tree to ascertain which to use. All other folders with folder.jpg in them get a simple frame with a flip fold on the bottom left.

Below is a picture of the Music folder: