How to change the icons for all my hidden folder

[Luttim]

I would like my hidden folders to have a different appearance to my other folders. When i navigate to .icons/theme/places/scalable I see no filename for folder-hidden. So I create one and reload my theme in settings, but it does not change the appearance of my hidden folders. Is there a way to change the appearance of all hidden folders in the icon theme?

[sebastjava]

Hmm. I don't know how to do this. But i have an alternate cheap idea. You could just add an emblem to every hidden folder.

I tried to select all my hidden folders in Nemo to go to File > Properties > Emblems... But this doesn't work. You can only add emblems to files by selecting them one-by-one. It would have been so easy. Too bad, i searched for some command to do this and found that: viewtopic.php?t=308032

I modified these commands for bulk work this way:

TO DO:

Code: Select all

for folder in $HOME/.??*/
do
  gio set -t stringv "$folder" metadata::emblems emblem-system
done

Reload Nemo to see the results: Ctrl+R

TO UNDO:

Code: Select all

for folder in $HOME/.??*/
do
  gio set -t unset "$folder" metadata::emblems
done

Reload Nemo to see the results: Ctrl+R

I tested this with the emblem-system but you can replace this with your preferred one. Just select one file and go to File > Properties > Emblems to see them all. Add the "emblem-" prefix and use lowercase letters only. Examples: emblem-default, emblem-important, etc.

[sebastjava]

That was just a quick and cheap alternate answer but i think you could also use this same gio command to change the icons to folder-hidden, getting exactly what you were asking in the first place. But i don't know how to do this exactly. You would need to do some more web search... Try my first quick answer first, and see if this fits. I have also included a quick "undo" anyway...

Of course, you would also have to create this custom folder-hidden icons before, but you said you already have done that.

[smurphos]

That was just a quick and cheap alternate answer but i think you could also use this same gio command to change the icons to folder-hidden, getting exactly what you were asking in the first place. But i don't know how to do this exactly.

If this folder-hidden isn't in the current icon theme or it's inherits (replace /path/to/ with the actual path)

Code: Select all

for folder in $HOME/.??*/
do
  gio set -t stringv "$folder" metadata::custom-icon "file:///path/to/folder-hidden"
done

or if it is in the current icon theme or it's inherits

Code: Select all

for folder in $HOME/.??*/
do
  gio set -t stringv "$folder" metadata::custom-icon-name folder-hidden
done

[sebastjava]

You may want to start with a simple GUI test on a single folder before executing this for loop...

DO:

1. Press Ctrl-H to toggle between show/hide hidden files and folders
2. Select a single hidden folder such as ~/.config
3. Open File > Properties
4. Click on the icon in this dialog box
5. Select your custom icon

UNDO:

1. Select a single hidden folder such as ~/.config
2. Open File > Properties
3. Click on the icon in this dialog box
4. Click on the Revert button

P.S.: I suggest you change your OP title to some more descriptive title such as "How to change the icons for all my hidden folders", or something better.

[sebastjava]

I checked all this again. I typed commands such as gio help, gio help set, and, much more interesting, man gio. In man gio i looked at the set sub-command section.

Then i did some tests on my ~/.cache folder, using both the GUI methods and the command-line gio methods, looking at the results on gio info $HOME/.cache for each test i did.

So, i just wanted to add two more things here...

PRIMO: All these are standard methods

I can confirm the methods described here above by smurphos for custom-icon or custom-icon-name are the exact equivalent as the "standard" GUI method described on my latest post here above. (viewtopic.php?p=2180223#p2180223 compared to viewtopic.php?p=2180464#p2180464)

With just one big difference: the command-line method lets you change all your hidden folder icons all at once, in just a split second, instead of doing them one-by-one with the GUI. As said before.

SECUNDO: You can always UNDO if needed

You probably have already figured this out from these previous posts, but, just in case, here are the "undo" methods. Use one of these two groups, depending on what you did before.

To undo all custom-icon :

Code: Select all

for folder in $HOME/.??*/
do
  gio set -t unset "$folder" metadata::custom-icon
done

Reload Nemo to see the results: Ctrl+R

—OR—

To undo all custom-icon-name :

Code: Select all

for folder in $HOME/.??*/
do
  gio set -t unset "$folder" metadata::custom-icon-name
done

Reload Nemo to see the results: Ctrl+R

CONCLUSION

Feel free to try whatever methods listed above, as they are all "standard" methods, and there is always a quick and easy "undo" for all of them anyway...

[Luttim]

All helpful, thanks very much. I was hoping there might be a way to do it within the actual icon theme and am a little surprised there isn't. On a side note I notice dolphin file browser makes hidden folders a lighter shade - it's a nice touch.