A Simple Extension

Create an empty file with the following code:

Example 1. A Simple Extension

import nautilus

class SimpleMenuExtension(nautilus.MenuProvider):
def __init__(self):
    pass

def menu_activate_cb(self, menu, file):
    print "menu_activate_cb",file

def get_file_items(self, window, files):
    if len(files) != 1:
        return
    
    file = files[0]

    item = nautilus.MenuItem(
        "SimpleMenuExtension::Show_File_Name",
        "Showing %s" % file.get_name(),
        "Showing %s" % file.get_name()
    )
    item.connect('activate', self.menu_activate_cb, file)
    
    return [item]

Save this file as TestExtension.py in the ~/.nautilus/python-extensions folder. You may need to create this folder. To run, open the terminal and type:

$ nautilus -q
$ nautilus --no-desktop

Once Nautilus starts, right-click on a file and you should see a new menu item, "Showing #filename#". It is as simple as that!

As mentioned above, in order to get loaded by Nautilus, a python extension must import the nautilus module, create a class derived from a nautilus *Provider, then create the methods that will be called by Nautilus when it requests information from its providers. In this case, when someone right-clicks on a file, Nautilus will ask all of its MenuProviders for additional menu items to show the user. When folders or files are clicked, the get_file_items method is called and a list of nautilus.MenuItems is expected.