Version

The version of KDE I will be using in this article is the version shipped with openSUSE 11.4 (KDE 4.6). Anyone that has experienced this KDE release will know how well it performs. Dolphin is no exception. Under KDE 4.6, Dolphin is quite the solid file manager. And, of course, you will need not install a single piece of software, as Dolphin will be pre-installed with the KDE desktop.

Split screens

Figure 1

One of the cool features of Dolphin is the ability to split the screen in just about any way you need. As you can see, in Figure 1, the default Dolphin screen displays a single pane. But what if you want to manage files and folders from within a single window? You can easily do this by splitting the screen.

To split the current Dolphin screen simply click on the Split icon in the Dolphin window. This will then split the current working pane (see Figure 2). You can also change the view of the individual pane. Say in one pane you wanted an icon view and on one you wanted the detailed view. Simply select the pane you want to change and then select the view you want for that pane. To close the split view simply select the pane you want to close and click the Close icon.

Preview

Figure 3

Dolphin has a great way to preview files, built right into the file manager. From the main toolbar simply click the Preview button and file previews will be toggled on. Figure 3 shows Dolphin with Previews turned on.

You can adjust Preview settings from with the Dolphin Settings window. Click Settings > Dolphin Settings > General > Preview and you can then define what file types you want to show previews for as well as define the file sizes allowed for previews.

Services

Figure 4

You can add new features to Dolphin very easily. From within the Dolphin Preferences window click on Services and then click the Download New Services button.

From this new window, see Figure 4, you can add on any number of features, such as: Get Youtube videos, print selection, post image to tumblr, scan with ClamAV, DropBox service menu, and much more. To install these services, simply click the Install button associated with the service you want to install.

Adjust View properties

From within the View menu you can open the Adjust View Properties window where you can further refine the viewing modes of Dolphin. This allows you to:

• Show folders/files in groups.
• Show hidden files.
• Apply view properties to specific folders or sub-folders.
• Add additional information to be shown.
• Set the default view mode.
• And more.

Final thoughts

Many complained with Dolphin was made the default  file manager in KDE, but Dolphin is quite the powerful, and flexible file manager. Give some of these tips a try and you might find yourself not missing Konqueror as the default manager as much.

So in this Thunar-themed entry I am going to  show you two different features for Thunar that will bring it up to par with the competition. One of these features is built into Thunar, and the other is an add on. After you’ve included the use of these two items in your general Thunar usage, you might find yourself using Nautilus or Dolphin less and less.

Send to

Included with the Thunar file manager is the ability to send a file to a location. By default Thunar includes Send To entries for:

• Desktop (create a desktop link – icon – for the item.
• Any externally mounted volume.
• Blutooth recipient.
• Email recipient.

You can, of course, extend this Send to menu quite easily. Let’s say you want to add a Flickr entry to the Send to menu. For this you would first want to install the application postr (sudo apt-get install postr will do the trick in Ubuntu). Once you have that installed create the file /usr/share/Thunar/sendto/flickr.desktop and put in it the following contents:
# postr.desktop - Integrate postr into
# the "Send To" menu.
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Encoding=UTF-8
TryExec=postr
Exec=postr %F
Icon=postr
Name=Flickr
MimeType=image/jpeg;image/jpg;image/png

You can find plenty of samples for the Sendto menu from the Thunar Xfce Wiki page.

Media tags

One thing that is missing from the basic Thunar installation is the ability to edit media tags. I don’t know how many times I’ve been listening to a song on one device or another, only to have the media tag be wrong. To be able to edit these tags from within Thunar you need to install the thunar-media-tags-plugin. You can do that from either your Add/Remove Software tool (search for “thunar” – no quotes – and you will find it), or you can install it from command line like so:

sudo apt-get install thunar-media-tags-plugin

No matter which way you start it, restart Thunar once it is installed.

Now when you navigate to a media file, right-click the file, and select Properties you will find a new tab called Audio or Video, depending upon the type of media file you are viewing.

Figure 1

When you click on the Audio (or Video) tab you will see the all too familiar  media tags associated with that file (see Figure 1). At this point you can edit the tags to your hearts’ desire. Just make sure, once you are finished editing, that you click the Save button to complete the process.

You can also get a bit more information (un-editable information) about the media file by clicking Properties. This button will show you the file size, bitrate, samplerate, channels, and length of the media file.

Final thoughts

Thunar is one of the more customizable file managers available. Add to that the speed at which it runs, and the availability it offers to nearly all Linux desktops and you should see why it has become my favorite file manager.

In this article I am going to de-mystify Linux file compression and archiving for you. By the end of the article you’ll be compressing and decompressing files in your sleep. And, as a bonus, you’ll know how to do this both via command line and GUI.

Compression versus archiving

The difference between compression and archiving is simple: Compression makes a file (or directory) smaller and Archiving takes many seperate files (such as a directory containing sub-directories and/or files) and turns it into a single file. You can have a compressed archive (such as .tar.gz or .tgz) and you can even have an archive of compressed files (such as a directory that contains a bunch of compressed files). But how do you know what are compressed files verses archived files? Here’s a list of file extensions and what they are.

.tar – This is an uncompressed Tar archive file. This type of archive is unpacked with the command tar xvf file.tar.

.tgz – This is a compressed Tar archive file. This type of archive is decompressed and unpacked with the command tar xvzf file.tgz.

.gz – This is a file compressed with the gzip program. This type of file is decompressed with the command gunzip file.gz.

.zip – This is a compressed file. This type of file is decompressed with the command unzip file.zip

.bz2 – This is a compressed file. This type of file is decompressed with the command bunzip2 file.bz2.

Which compression to use?

Of the three compression utilities (bzip2, zip, and gzip) the tool that will result in the most compression (the smallest file) is bzip2. The only disadvantage to bzip2 is that the algorithm uses more processor to complete than does the other utilities.

If you are sharing your compressed files with Windows users your best bet is to use zip for compression. Although there are tools (such as Stuffit Deluxe for Windows) that can handle bz2 files, the default supported is .zip.

Using the GUI

If you are a fan of the GUI (and who isn’t these days?) you will be glad to know that most all Linux file managers can handle compressed and archived files. In both Nautilus (GNOME) and Dolphin (KDE) you can simply right click a compressed, archived, or compressed archive file and select Extract. Both file managers also offer compression and archiving options when you right click a file or directory.

Final thoughts

Working with compression and archiving is very simple with the Linux operating system. You have plenty of options in both the command line and the GUI worlds.

In this Linux Tips article I will show you how to view hidden files with ls, Thunar, Nautilus, and Dolphin.

LS

If you need to see hidden files using the ls command you need to add the -a switch. But if you just add the -a switch most likely your files will fly by you and you will miss what you are looking for. To avoid this pipe the command through the less command like so:

ls -a | less

The above command will allow you to page through the contents so you can actually see what is there. You can scroll either up or down using the arrow keys or you can scroll down one page at a time with the space bar.

Thunar

Figure 1

If you don’t know, Thunar is the file manager for the Enlightenment desktop. In order to see hidden files in Thunar click the View menu and check the Show Hidden Files box (as shown in Figure 1.) Or you can hit the key combination Ctrl-H.

If you use the key combination you must make sure you are focused on the Thunar window. When you set Thunar to view hidden files it will always do so until you unset this option.

Nautlius

Figure 2

Nautilus is the file manager for the GNOME desktop. With the Nautilus file manager viewing hidden files is done in the same way. From the View menu select the Show Hidden Files option (see Figure 2) or hit the key combination Ctrl-H. Like Thunar, if you use the key combination you must be focused on the Nautilus window.

And like Thunar, the hidden file option will stick until it is unset.

Dolphin

Figure 3

Dolphin is the KDE file manager that replaced Konqueror. In order to view hidden files in this file manager you select the View Hidden Files option from the View menu. You can also enable this action by hitting the Ctrl-. key combination. And like both Thunar and Nautilus, in order to use the key combination Dolphin must be in focus or the combination will not work.

Again, like the other graphical file managers, this option will remain until unset.

Final Thoughts

Hidden files are an important part of the Linux operating system. Although you can go your entire Linux lifetime without ever having to view a single hidden file, on that one occasion that you will need to do so, it’s good to know how.