Comment 23 for bug 520118

The closest thing I've seen to a "real" fix was posted by someone in the XFCE bug report forum http://bugzilla.xfce.org/attachment.cgi?id=2940. Patching "exo-tree-view.c" in the Ubuntu "exo-0.3.106" (for Lucid) source at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/exo seems to work without ill effect as far as I can tell. After compiling I just replaced the /usr/lib/libexo-0.3.so.0.5.0 with the patched version, and linked /usr/lib/libexo-0.3.so.0 to it (some versions may require a /usr/lib/libexo-0.3.so link too). Also it appears that the recompiled file expects the /usr/lib/libexo-0.3.0/ folder to be /usr/local/libexec/, so a link to the directory needs to be created there if the source isn't further edited. Obviously, to anyone reading, I take no responsibility for any damage this might cause, TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK, and keep backups of any system files you substitute!

On a side-note, I'm with those who consider this bug critical. Well at least critical to Xubuntu or any XFCE based distro. The real test of a good file manager is efficiency, any gains in Thunar's lightness are immediately lost when a user has to resort to awkward workarounds (excluding hacks) to make very basic functionality usable. I dare say many Thunar/potential users will look for alternative file managers, especially as there doesn't seem to be any clarity when or whether this bug will be fixed. At least there appears to be some progress on the Pcmanfm front now.