nemo-dim-hidden

A nemo-python extension that dims hidden files (dotfiles) in Nemo's list view.

Nemo already dims hidden files in icon view out of the box. This extension brings the same visual treatment to list view, greying out the Name, Size, Type, Date Modified columns (and any other text columns you have enabled) for every file whose name starts with ..

Compact view: Nemo natively dims the file icon in compact view (50 % opacity). The text labels there are rendered on an EelCanvas with no Python API, so this extension cannot affect them.

Requirements

• Nemo ≥ 3.0 (tested on 6.2 / Linux Mint 22)
• nemo-python package

sudo apt install nemo-python   # Debian / Ubuntu / Mint

Installation

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/nemo-python/extensions/
cp nemo-dim-hidden.py ~/.local/share/nemo-python/extensions/
nemo -q && nemo

To uninstall, delete the file and restart Nemo.

How it works

GTK's GtkCellRenderer has a sensitive property: when False, the theme renders the cell in its "insensitive" (greyed-out) state. The extension hooks into every text cell renderer in the file-list tree view via set_cell_data_func, checks whether the filename starts with ., and sets sensitive accordingly on every render pass.

A few non-obvious things worth knowing if you're reading the source:

• InfoProvider stub — in nemo-python 6.x, a class that only implements NameAndDescProvider is imported but never instantiated. Adding InfoProvider (with a trivial do-nothing stub) is necessary to get the class instantiated.

• set_cell_data_func replaces attribute bindings — Nemo normally binds model columns to renderer properties via add_attribute. Calling set_cell_data_func overrides this, so the text value must be set explicitly inside the callback. Each column's sort-column-id equals the model column Nemo uses for the text attribute, so model.get_value(it, col.get_sort_column_id()) reproduces the original text.

• draw-signal overlay doesn't work — the draw signal fires before the extension's idle callback connects to it (the window is already painted), and later redraws may be clipped to regions that exclude hidden-file rows. set_cell_data_func runs for every cell on every render pass, bypassing both issues.

License

MIT