Is Caja a joke?

[warp]

Hmm, are the developers of Mate taking the Mickey out of it's followers?
Caja can't be seen as a mature file manager to replace Nautilus. Can it?

In all the mentioned pro's and con's about Mint 13, the absence of Nautilus and/or the presence of Caja is not mentioned once, which I can understand now that I've tried Mint 13 Mate.
Sorry, I'll stick to Mint 11 for as long as Caja is not up to par with the features that Nautilus has to offer.

[sagirfahmid3]

Better yet, go with Debian Squeeze Gnome (yes, it still uses the much more useful and sexy Gnome 2.xx).
Lower RAM usage to go with that too (125MB idle RAM on Debian Gnome compared to around 200MB on the Ubuntus and Mints).

[Oscar799]

Moved here by moderator

[squeezy]

What's actually wrong with Caja for you? I've used it extensively and it works exactly the same as Nautilus in GNOME 2 for me.

[AlbertP]

Caja is basically Gnome 2.32's Nautilus - the Nautilus included with Mint is from Gnome 3. Maybe Caja is a little modified, but overall it's still the same.

[warp]

Caja is NOT basically Gnome 2.32's Nautilus.For one, it' s lacking all kind of modification possibilities.
Although "Nautilus Scripts" can be integrated, there are to many functions that are missing vs Gnome 2's Nautilus. Must be, otherwise there would be no reason to alter the file manager and call it Caja. Besides I do want the new kernel and Gnome3 libs, albeit to use the new Gimp 2.8!

I use the filemamager intensively, I open all my files through it and therefore I'm very much dependant on all kind of preview features.
Like cover-thumbnailer to identify artists and albums in my directory based music collection, and to have a quick glance at my incoming,pre-workflow, photocollection with RAW/NEF images.
The cover-thumbnailer workaround is to install Nautilus and Cover-Thumbnailer and let Nautilus then do the thumbnail indexing and as a result Caja follow's suit.

[xenopeek]

Caja is a fork of Nautilus, renamed because GNOME's trademarks I think. Some of the add-ons to Nautilus are indeed not yet rewritten to work with Caja, you might also want to check the MATE website (http://mate-desktop.org/) or forums and see if the developers of MATE are working on that.

[warp]

Although the fork thingy is well known, we were to accept a better Gnome, since the old one no longer did suffice.(??)
Well i.m.h.o. a better Gnome means at least a file manager that equals or, when possible, excels the old one.
I really can't bear losing all the tweaks and mods of Nautilus, it would break the deal, so to speak.

New development:
Switched to the Cinnamon version, and there the filemanager (=Nautilus) is as crippled as the Mate version, or even worse: no "home-reload-back-forth" button in sight.
Keyboard shortcuts are fine working in cli mode, they' re not ment for use in a graphic shell. (can' t afford to lose the grip on the mouse, it might run away)
I managed to get the thumbnailer working for anything but NEF/RAW files.

In the end to me it' s all a bit like the meat and vegetable producers strategie: give it all a blend taste and the masses will eat it all.
Unfortunately for them I like the real/old taste of lamb, mutton, sprouts, chicory and capsicums and for that matter, even their previews.

[xenopeek]

Nautilus on Gnome 3 (on top of which Cinnamon runs) is indeed dumbed down, and a lot of users share your sense of loss as the Gnome developers remove functionality in their bid to simplifying everything for average users.

For ultimate in configurability, try SpaceFM as a file manager (have a look here: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/02/spacefm- ... -pane.html). Or Dolphin might satisfy.

[Fixitmanarizona]

Marlin is another file manager project I like. It's not fully developed yet but it has a lot of potential. It includes a previewer in the file browser, which I've always preferred, yet is quite lightweight. I agree, Dolphin is certainly worth a shot, though. I'm seriously awaiting a full-featured version of Marlin, though!

[warp]

Using Mint 13 Mate for some six months now and Caja's development has gone the right way and is (almost but not quite) up to par with Nautilus' functions/options: bravo!!

So, one year later and no longer is Caja a Joke although I'm missing some vital functions:
- edit context-menu (I don't need Wine-explorer, or calibre on a html file)
- edit default editor permanently (Geany for Pluma)
- edit "open-with" list (get's longer and longer with tripple entries),
- show location more prominently (where am I on which of my eight drives/partitions)
In short: Caja should be more configurable in order to improve my workflow.

I'ts usable so far.

[dee.]

want the new kernel and Gnome3 libs, albeit to use the new Gimp 2.8!

IIRC Gimp 2.8 doesn't require any Gnome3 libs. The migration to Gtk3 is scheduled for Gimp 3.0, and I don't know of any other Gnome3 libs that Gimp would require. You should be able to install Gimp 2.8 on any system just fine.

I have it installed on my Mint 13, even though the repositories only offer 2.6. It's not hard to compile.

[InkKnife]

Although the fork thingy is well known, we were to accept a better Gnome, since the old one no longer did suffice.(??)
Well i.m.h.o. a better Gnome means at least a file manager that equals or, when possible, excels the old one.
I really can't bear losing all the tweaks and mods of Nautilus, it would break the deal, so to speak.

New development:
Switched to the Cinnamon version, and there the filemanager (=Nautilus) is as crippled as the Mate version, or even worse: no "home-reload-back-forth" button in sight.
Keyboard shortcuts are fine working in cli mode, they' re not ment for use in a graphic shell. (can' t afford to lose the grip on the mouse, it might run away)
I managed to get the thumbnailer working for anything but NEF/RAW files.

In the end to me it' s all a bit like the meat and vegetable producers strategie: give it all a blend taste and the masses will eat it all.
Unfortunately for them I like the real/old taste of lamb, mutton, sprouts, chicory and capsicums and for that matter, even their previews.

If the Cinnamon edition used Nautilus you might have a point, but Cinnamon uses Nemo, a fork of Nautilus that has many more features than Nautilus does.

[warp]

I saw the light and made Mint 16 / Cinnamon the family desktop, AND the preferred desktop for a couple of Windows converts: they love it!!
So far there's not much that can go wrong by N00B treatment.
Keep up the good work my Mint friends.

[ben2talk]

I think Caja is lighter on its feet than Nautilus ever was for me, right-clicking my home (or other huge directory) doesnt bog down my system as it used to....

However, it seems we must go back a few years to get a 'nautilus-rename-exif-date' to make a photographers life easier.

If you consider the main uses of PCs, surely we should try to keep it simple. My vote would be for a team to work on this exclusively for a while to weed out good ideas and migrate them to Caja.

Meantime I will make do by opening terminal and using one of several fine command line options, but nothing beats a quick import-select-rename option in my book.

[clfarron4]

You also have to remember that the MATE Desktop is cleaning up all the mess that accumulated in GNOME2 (because the codebase of GNOME2 is a mess), so not everything is going to work straight away.

[ben2talk]

What's actually wrong with Caja for you? I've used it extensively and it works exactly the same as Nautilus in GNOME 2 for me.

Rubbish. Caja still runs smooth for me, but Nautilus started freezing my desktop if I R click the wrong folders:P

[warp]

Closing argument.(I guess)
I've been using Mint Cinnamon for years now. (17.1 at the moment)
My post from 2012 was altogether right but a bit premature: did not give much time to the developers, did I? (sorry, I was really disapointed at the time)

So, I'm perfectly happy now with Cinnamon & Nemo, although my computers are really antique (6,7,8 years old)

Haven't felt the need to try Mint Mate since, and I don't know about Caja, but it's development has most likely followed suit with Nemo's.

I can only, and most humbly, thank the Mint Team for doing such a GRAND job (and thus making me a very happy user.)

Frank