Hi assente,

Here is what I ended up with after a few days of playing with it. Using Ruby of course, because Ruby is the best. ;)

#!/usr/bin/ruby

# nautilus - Replacement shell script to use Thunar
# in place of nautilus as much as possible - thanks assente

$KODE='U'

# searches for a binary in $PATH
def which(app)
    dirnames = ENV['PATH'].split(':')
    dirnames.each { |dirname|
        filename = File.join(dirname, app)
        if (File.executable?(filename) and
            File.file?(filename))
            return filename
        end
    }
    return nil
end

## we need the explicit path to tell exec in arg 0
## so that when thunar/nautilus takes control of
## the process, the right name is shown in the
## process list / pidof / &c, else 'pidof thunar'
## returns null

## set the path explicitly
thunar_bin = '/usr/bin/thunar'
## else uncomment below
#thunar_bin = File.which('thunar')

## set the path explicitly
nautil_bin = '/usr/bin/nautilus.real'
## else uncomment below
#nautil_bin = File.which('nautilus.real')

args = []

if (ARGV.empty?):
    exec([thunar_bin, thunar_bin])
else
    ARGV.each { |arg|
        if (['--no-desktop', '--browser'].include?(arg))
            args.push(arg)
        end
    }
    args.each { |arg| ARGV.delete(arg) }
end

if (ARGV.empty?):
    exec([thunar_bin, thunar_bin])
elsif (ARGV[0][0,1] == '/')
    exec([thunar_bin, thunar_bin], ARGV[0])
elsif (ARGV.length > 1 and ARGV[1][0..6] == 'file://')
    exec([thunar_bin, thunar_bin], ARGV[1])
else
    unless (args.include?('--no-desktop'))
        args = ['--no-dekstop'] + args
    end
    exec([nautil_bin, nautil_bin], *(args + ARGV))
end

So far it has worked very well. Hope it helps.

Nota bene: Forgive my ignornce of your blog. I'm a stupid american, so I don't understand Italian too well!