Nautilus default behaviour for executable scripts is poor

[liamdawe]

This is a papercut / quality of life issue that's really annoying me.

On other file managers, if you set an .sh file as executable, it will offer to do something. With Ubuntu + Nautilus, it always by default just opens it in a text editor. This is really annoying and frankly a bad default to have.

I know there's the right click menu to run as program, but since Ubuntu is trying to appeal to the masses here, good default behaviour is needed IMO.

Example: you download a Linux game from GOG, you make it executable and then you double click to run -> wait a while as text editor tries to load a multiple GB installer .sh script, which is made with MojoSetup (it's a graphical app).

Other file managers first ask what to do with a box like: "run? open as file? run in terminal?". Ubuntu should ideally do this too.

I just don't think auto-opening big .sh executable files by default, in a text editor, is very good for users.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Rick (rickandtired)]

I agree

I think the default behavior in Nautilus Preferences should be "Ask what to do" for "Executable Text Files"

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences executable-text-activation ask

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 1433774, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.