XYplorer Pro is a professional file manager for the Windows operating system that can be used in addition or as a replacement for Windows Explorer. A limited Home version is also available that retails for about half the price of the Pro version. Both versions come with free lifetime updates, and are offered as a portable and installed version.

Windows Explorer users should feel right at home when they start the program for the first time. The traditional two-paned interface displays folders on the left and the contents of the selected folder on the right. Unlike in Windows Explorer though, it is possible to customize the interface significantly to display more or less data on the screen.

A tap on F10 or a click on the Dual Pane button in the main toolbar adds another file browser to the system to make file operations and comparisons more comfortable.

XYplorer ships with many easy to access features that make life that much easier when it comes to day to day operations. Users will for instance notice the highlighting of some folders in the file manager. System files, junctions or encrypted files are color coded to improve identification. The same is done for several popular file types like executable files, web files or images. Advanced users can even go into the options and create their own folder and program groups that they want highlighted on the system. File type highlighting is disabled by default and can be activated with a click on the enable color filters button in the main interface.

When it comes to the application’s interface, everything is just a click away from being customized. Options are available to display an info pane to display everything there is to know about a file or folder in the open, a catalog with filtering and bookmarking options, multiple view modes to display files and folders in various formats, and tabs to display multiple locations and information next to each other.

The Info Pane displays information that are hidden in nested menus in Windows Explorer. It for instance displays all file properties and attributes, a preview and raw view, and version information. File properties can be edited right away with just a click of the mouse button.

File search is also displayed in the Info Pane which can be accessed directly if the pane is displayed, or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-f. XYplorer supports Boolean and regular expression searches, filters (by size, date, file contents attribute) and options to search specific locations only.

Search results are displayed near instantly in one of the file browser panes. Files can be opened, modified, moved or deleted right in that pane. The file manager supports drag and drop operations, for instance from one file browser pane to the other to make copy and move operations more comfortable.

Catalogs, of which multiple can exist, act as favorites and file filters. The system is powerful, allowing users to run basic operations like opening a specific folder on the system to filtering a folder for specific file types or opening files with a selected program.

Another way to quickly find and work with files is the program’s tagging feature. Tagging buttons are not displayed in the toolbar by default but you can either add them by right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting the customize option or directly from the menu without making those customizations.

It still pays off to look at the customize toolbar menu as the menu offers dozens of buttons that are not displayed by default on the toolbar. This includes drive letters, the aforementioned tag buttons and even user defined buttons.

Advanced users find a large number of features at their disposal that improve the workflow further. Keyboard shortcuts, already available for many major program features, can be defined for more or less any program function. Shortcuts can for instance be added to user-defined commands, which work exactly as the catalog feature.

A scripting language is available for advanced operations. From saving last year’s doc files to a zip file, converting characters in text files or creating a formatted HTML document that lists all files of a directory. Examples are provided in the program’s help file and on the software’s homepage on the Internet.

The program’s configuration menu holds hundreds of configuration options that change the application’s functionality. From editing color filters and tags over fonts and templates to thumbnail dimensions and startup and exit behavior, it is all editable with just a click.

XYplorer’s list of features does not end here. Worth mentioning as part of the review are multi-level undo and redo options, queued file operations, a mini-tree view mode that displays only the folder structure of the currently selected folder and the flat view mode that displays all sub-folder contents in the file browser directly.

New users can take a look at some of the program’s core features on the tour index page. A 30-day trial version that is not limited in functionality is available for download at this page.

Verdict:

XYplorer Pro is a well thought out file manager for the Windows operating system. The standard version of the program, without any customizations done, is already that much better than Windows Explorer and many comparable file management tools. All major features and workflows are in reach and optimized for quick access.

The app begins to shine even more when you start to explore all under the hood options that it offers. From configuring keyboard shortcuts, the customizable tag and color highlighting system, and the portable version to XYplorer’s huge list of configuration options, scripting and the application’s speed and performance: it is what Windows Explorer should be but never will be.

The program does not come with an ftp client or native zip unpacking which some users may miss. The majority of users on the other hand will have specialized tools (like WinSCP or 7-zip) installed that offer a better functionality that any file manager could offer.

Giveaway

We have 19 XYplorer Pro lifetime licenses for this giveaway. Please leave a comment below to be included in the drawing. Let us know about the file management software that you are currently using.

The file manager offers a top down look on all the files on the computer system with options to zoom in and out to view the files directly the file manager.

A basic example. Say you have a few text documents or images sitting in a folder. If you zoom in closely enough, you can read the texts or view the images without opening the files at all.

This viewing mode does not work for all file types on the system, but the most basic file types are all supported. This includes the majority of media files, plain text documents and even some games or applications.

The program interface needs some getting used to time, as it looks quite messy on first glance. It basically consists of a header with direct links to folders, the configuration and file management tools, and the main area that can be used to zoom in and out of folders and drives.

It is a good idea to run the application full screen as it might otherwise be difficulty to read the button texts in the program header.

The mouse wheel is used to zoom in and out of the file and folder structure. It feels a bit strange in the beginning that it is not possible to use the mouse to move the selection around, as it happens quite often that a file is not displayed centered on screen. The user guide has an answer for that. The developers have mapped the scrolling to the middle mouse button. Hold down the middle mouse button to move around.

A double-click on a file opens it in the default viewer on the system, which is handy for all unsupported files or if you need to edit the selected file.

New users should consider reading the install and start guide as well as the general user guide on the developer website at Sourceforge to get a deeper understanding of the program. Especially the core keyboard and mouse functions are explained in the guides.

The file manager can be downloaded from the project website over at Sourceforge. The program is compatible with all recent versions of Windows and various Linux distributions.

1. Dual pane

The feature I use the most is the dual pane view. It makes moving files around easy. While many alternative file managers have the feature, the Windows Explorer does not.

2. Tabs

In an age where browsers, text editors, development packages, etc. all have tabs, it is surprising to see the default manager without such a feature. Xplorer2 can have them at the top or bottom of a pane, and it can have them per pane.

3. Filters

Often, when opening a file from a program, only the files we want are shown. Word will show you documents; Notepad will show you text. Xplorer2 can limit what files are shown with filters. Documents, images, and file types can be shown as needed with the right wild-cards (e.g. *.doc* for documents).

4. Hide Folders

While viewing pictures, sometimes there may be several sub-folders. They can get in the way, particularly if a window is not maximized. Xplorer2 lets you hide the folders to neaten the view. This works nicely in conjunction with filters, especially with multiple folders that do not contain files of interest.

5. Simple Hard Links

When copying and pasting a file, the default file manager has always made it easy to create a soft link (shortcut). Making a hard link, however, it not as easy. Xplorer2 takes the next logical step and adds the option to create a hard link from the context menu when pasting a file.

6. Breadcrumbs (even in XP)

Breadcrumbs is a feature that shows the path to the folder you are in. It makes it easy to reach any parent folder, their sub folders, and even other drives. This is not anything new for Vista/Win7 users, but XP lacks the feature. Xplorer2 can be used to bring it to the platform.

7. Selected File Recall

When browsing your hard drive in Xplorer2, you will find that the file selected is not always the first. The program remembers what file or folder was last opened. When you return to the folder, the main program or document within it may already be chosen. Press Enter to open it instantly.

8. Double-Click Level Up

Going to a parent folder in explorer was never particularly difficult, but it is easier to do in Xplorer2. While you can still have a button or press Backspace, you also can double click in white space to go up a folder level. Once you get used to it, making sure to be clear of files, it becomes second nature.

9. Utilitarian or Minimalistic

By default, Xplorer2 has all sorts of toolbars and panes open. Its interface can be stripped down to just the file pane and breadcrumbs. Alternatively, it can be expanded to have every icon in the toolbar, accompanied by other panes (e.g. the preview pane). While most file managers, including explorer, allow for expansion, few can reduce to the screen footprint of Xplorer2.

10. Favorites List

While the default file explorer has a Favorites list, it makes no sense to share it with the web browser. The separation should be by program, which is the case with Xplorer2. Naturally, it uses its own list of user-specified folders. This can include FTP sites too.

More Advantages

This only scratches the surface. Free HDD space shows in the status bar. A new file can be automatically sorted (rather than listed last). Filtered panes can be a different color. Natural numbering (forcing file10 to come after file1) is optional. The options will outline most of the features.

Disadvantages

There are disadvantages to the program, like anything else. Some programs refuse to work with anything but the native file explorer. For instance, you may not be able to open a folder from a download context menu in a browser. The lite version has some limitations, as there is a shareware full version, which you can try free for three weeks. Be mindful while installing the lite version; it is bundled with a browser toolbar.

Summary

While this article is not meant to be persuasive, Xplorer2 does have abilities that deserve to be pointed out. Some features, such as selected file recall, a user may not notice until they have consistently used the application. It is worth trying out, especially if you are an XP user.

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.

Although adding this feature isn’t exactly automatic (or, some would argue, user-friendly), it’s all just a matter of knowing what to look for. So here I am to explain to you how to add this feature and then how to share out those folders.

Bodhi Linux comes with a stripped down version of the Nautilus file manager. I have it on authority that Bodhi might be switching to PCManFM (I am hoping the sharing functionality will be either built in or available at that point, but at this point it is not a feature that is available.)

Installation

The easiest way to install everything you need for this feature is to follow these steps:

1. Open up Synaptic.
2. Search for “nautilus” (no quotes).
3. Mark nautilus-share for installation.
4. OK the dependencies necessary.
5. Search for “samba” (no quotes).
6. Mark samba for installation.
7. OK the dependencies necessary.
8. Click Apply.
9. Click Apply in the new window.
10. Allow the installation to complete.

Once the installation is complete, you will have to log out and log back in so the changes will take effect. If this were the full version of Nautilus, you could issue the command nautilus -q and the changes would automatically take effect. That command will only produce an error in this stripped-down version of Nautilus. So go through the process of logging out and logging back in.

Enable Sharing

Figure 1

At this point, everything should be exactly as you would expect. Fire up Nautilus (left-click the desktop to open the mouse menu and click Places > Home) to start the process of sharing folders.

Once Nautilus is open, right-click the folder you want to share and then select Sharing Options (see Figure 1). In the new window check off the Share Folder option. You can now configure any options you may want to add to the folder (such as Share Name, Comment, Allow others to create/delete, and Guest access). After you OK this you will be prompted to have the proper permissions assigned automatically – allow this to happen (otherwise you are going to have a hard time assigning permissions to that shared folder).

Figure 2

When the folder is shared out, it will be indicated with a different icon. As you can see, in Figure 2, the Music folder has been shared out and is denoted with the addition of a hand in the icon.

You should now be able to hit that shared out folder from any machine on your network that is able to hit shared folders.

Final thoughts

I am thrilled to see that Bodhi Linux is following in at least some of the footsteps of Ubuntu and making features like folder sharing available (and easily set up.) I do hope that when Bodhi makes the move to a new file manager, that the sharing of folders is included in the feature list.

In this instance I am going to show you how to use the Nautilus Actions tool to directly add music to your Rhythmbox Play Queue. Although the action will not initiate the playing of the music, it’s a very easy way to fill up your play queue.

A few notes

First and foremost, in order for this to work (outside of making sure you have everything installed) the music you will add from Nautilus must already be in your Rhythmbox library. This action takes advantage of the Rhythmbox command line tool rhythmbox-client which can not actually add music to the library. We can, however, create an action that will both enqueue the music AND begin playing the music. That is exactly what we are going to do.

A piece to install

In case you don’t already have Nautilus Actions installed, you will need to do so. This is very simple to do if you follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software Utility.
2. Search for “nautilus” (no quotes).
3. Mark Nautilus Actions for installation.
4. Okay any dependencies that might be necessary.
5. Click Apply to install.

Once the installation is complete, you can then close the Add/Remove Software Tool and get ready to work.

Creating the action

Figure 1

The first step is to start up the Nautilus Actions Configuration Tool. To do this click System > Preferences > Nautilus Actions Which will open up the tool in question. When you first open up this tool it will be empty of actions. To create an action click File > New Action. This will open the New Action tabs (see Figure 1) where you will begin to create what you need.

Now, let’s take a look at what you need to configure in order to enable an action to both add to and play from your Rhythmbox play list. We’ll look at this tab by tab.

Action

Under the action tab, you need to do the following:

• Check “Display item in selection context menu”
• Check “Display item in location context menu”
• Enter “Add and Play” (no quotes) in the Context label section.
• Check “Display item in the toolbar”
• Enter “Enqueue and Play Music” in the Tooltip section.
• Select an icon to be displayed from the drop down.
• Check “Enabled” under Action properties.

Command

Under the Command section of the command tab, you need to do the following:

• Enter /usr/bin/rhythmbox-client in the Path section.
• Enter --enqueue %M --play in the Parameters section.

Conditions

Under the Conditions tab, you need to do the following:

• Enter *.mp3; *.flacc; *.acc; *.ogg in the Filenames section. NOTE: You can add as many file types as you need here.
• Enter audio/* in the Mimetypes section.
• Check “Both”.
• Check “Appears if selection has multiple files or folders”

Figure 2

That’s it. Now you have to save the action by clicking the Save button (or clicking File > Save). The final step is to restart nautilus with the command nautilus -q. After you restart Nautilus open up Nautilus to your ~/Music folder (or where ever you house your collection) and notice the new icons (see Figure 2) in the upper right corner of the Nautilus window. In my sample I have created two actions: One that only adds music and the other that adds and then plays music. Select the folder you want to add and then press the icon for your action and the music will be added to the queue and Rhytmbox will start playing.

Final thoughts

It’s amazing how flexible Nautilus is. Even just a file manager can be so much more than that in the world of Linux. And what’s best…you can create so many different actions with Nautilus to perfectly suit your needs.

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.

The vifm file manager is an ncurses-based file manager with vi keybindings. So if you are used to vi, you will have no problems using vifm. Now vifm is not heavily developed. In fact, the last release was August 7, 2009. But it’s still a worthy file manager for those looking for more text-based management tools. In this article, I will introduce you to one of the best text-based file managers.

Features

The vifm file manager can move around your file system hierarchy, copy files, delete files, copy files, paste files, search…and that’s about it. What more do you really need from a file manager? But best of all, vifm does this all quickly and efficiently. Now, let’s install and use.

Installation

Naturally we will be installing from command line. To do this in an apt-get based distribution (such as Ubuntu or Debian), you would do the following:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install vifm.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Accept any dependencies by clicking “y”.
5. Watch the installation happen.

In an rpm (or yum) based distribution (such as Fedora) you could install like so:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Su to the root user.
3. Enter the command yum install vifm.
4. Accept any dependencies by clicking “y”.
5. Watch the installation happen.

You are now ready to use vifm.

Usage

You open vifm by enter the command vifm from within the terminal window. When you open the file manager you will see a two-paned window (see Figure 1). What you see highlighted is what is currently active. So in the case of Figure 1 the ../ is active. The ../ string of characters means go to the parent directory. So if you hit enter while that is selected you will go to the parent directory of the current directory (in the case of Figure 1 that would be /home/).

To move up and down the directory hierarchy you use the up and down arrow keys. To move back and forth between the panes you use the Tab key.

As you would expect, vifm works similarly to the vi editor – it has key combinations to take care of tasks. The most useful of these are:

• yy – Yank a file (or “copy” in modern parlance).
• p – Put a file (or “paste” in modern parlance).
• dd – Delete a file.
• Enter – View a file (will not view binary files).
• / – Search for a file (the / character is followed by your search string).

So, let’s say you want to copy a file in one directory and paste it into another. Here’s the steps for that process:

1. Move the selection bar to the file you want to copy.
2. Hit “yy”.
3. Move the selection bar to the directory you want to copy the file to and hit Enter (you will then be inside of that directory).
4. Hit “p” and the file will copy.

It’s actually quite simple.

When you want to quit vifm you have to go into command mode (just like vi) and hit the “:” key, type quit, and hit Enter. And, like any good Linux tool, you can get more help with vifm by typing :help.

Final thoughts

If you need a text based file manager, you can’t go wrong with vifm. Granted you will have to learn a new set of key combinations (unless you’re already used to vi), but the speed and efficiency of vifm makes up for the few keystrokes you will have to learn.

Although you won’t find all of the standard features found in most modern file managers, you will find emelFM2 has a few tricks of its own that make it worth (at least) giving a try. And, of course, any old school user will be happy to have this file manager sitting alongside the standard Nautilus, Dolphin, or Thunar.

In this Ghacks article I will show you how to install and make use of the emelFM2 file manager.

Installation

Since emelFM2 is a GTK+ toolkit it’s fairly universal on X11 systems. I found emelFM2 in both the standard repositories for Ubuntu 10.04 and Fedora 13. So installation can be as simple as:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “emelfm2″ (no quotes).
3. Mark emelFM2 for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

Once installed, you will find emelFM2 in Start > System Tools > emelFM2.

Usage

Figure 1

When you start up emelFM2 the window that greets you will look very familiar (see Figure 1). If you’ve ever used Midnight Commander or even an FTP application like gFTP, you will be immediately at home with emelFM2.

Let’s say you want to move a file (or directory) from one location to another. To do so you would navigate on the left pane to the source, select the file (or folder), navigate on the right to the target, and then click the Move button in the middle of the panes.

Or say you want to just open a file. To do this you would navigate to the location of the file on either the left or right pane, and double click the file to open it. You could also right-click the file and select from any number of actions (such as change ownership, change permissions, copy, link, link-as, delete, and more).

Other features

Naturally, a tool like this would need some other features to make it attractive. And emelFM2 doesn’t disappoint. One of the nice handier features of emelFM2 is the built-in command line tool. at the bottom of the window you will see a small text area (see Figure 1). This text area allows you to enter commands that will be enacted upon the selected file.

You can also calculate disk usage of items. You might be asking yourself why this would be useful, since the file size is already displayed in the main panes. The disk usage tool allows you to calculate the exact file size of either a single file or multiple files. With this you can select multiple files and the click the disk usage button (bottom section of the window, eighth icon from the right) to give you the total amount used by the selected files.

emelFM2 also allows you to mount/unmount devices. To unmount a device you would select the device in either pane and then click the unmount icon (fourth button from the right near the bottom of the window). To mount a device you use the same process.

emelFM2 also has an interesting take on the filtering task. If you click the Filter icon (top right, third from the right for the right pane, top left, third from the left for the left pane) a drop-down will appear allowing you to select from:

• Name Filter
• Size Filter
• Date Filter
• Directories too

When you select any of he top three a new window will open allowing you to create a specific filter. For example, if you want to filter only files modified since a specific date, you would do the following:

Select the Date Filter

In the resulting window select “modified since” from the drop-down.

Enter the date you want to specify.

Click OK.

Figure 2

As soon as you click OK the directory will be refreshed to show only the results that match your filter. You will know when a directory is being filtered because the filter icon will have a line slashed through it (see Figure 2).

Final thoughts

Although many users might find emelFM2 a bit out-dated, anyone that was weened on the likes of Midnight Commander will find themselves right at home with this fast, light file manager. And with a few extra features rolled in, emelFM2 is an attractive alternative to the usual fare.

What we now have is an incredibly fast, easy to use, light weight file manager that will please just about any level of user. And best of all, it can be added to nearly any distribution. So if you are unhappy with your desktop’s bulky file manager, I’ll show you how to install and use PCMan File Manager to lighten up your desktops’ load.

Features

For a light weight file manager, PCMan File Manager has a nice list of features:

• Very fast and lightweight
• Near one-second start up time
• Tabbed browsing
• Volume management (mount/umount/eject)
• File searching utility (GUI frontend for find + grep commands)
• Drag & Drop
• Files can be dragged across tabs
• Fast loading of large directories
• File association support (Default application)
• Thumbnails
• Bookmarks
• Non-UTF-8 encoded filename support
• Icon, compact, and detailed list views
• Standards compliant
• Clean and user-friendly interface

Installation

Installation is simple if you follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “pcmanfm” (no quotes).
3. Mark pcmanfm for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

Or, if you’d rather install from the command line:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install pcmanfm (in Ubuntu) or yum install pcmanfm (in Fedora). NOTE: If using Fedora you will have to su to the root user before you issue the command to install.
3. When finished, close your terminal window.

That’s it. PCMan File Manager should now be installed. Let’s see what it looks like and how it’s used.

Usage

Figure 1

To start up PCMan File Manager click Applications > System Tools > PCMan File Manager. When you do you will see a fairly standard looking file manager pop up in next to no time.

The GUI is about as straight-forward as you can get. In fact, the GUI almost resembles that of Nautilus from the GNOME desktop.

If you’re not fond of the Location view in the left navigation pane, you can switch that to Tree view by clicking the folder icon in the lower left corner.

Once very nice feature of PCMan File Manager is that you can very quickly open up your terminal of choice by either clicking F4 (when PCMan File Manager is open and has focus) or by clicking Tool > File Manager. Of course, before this will work you have to configure the file manager you want to use. To do this click Edit > Preferences and then click on the Advanced tab. From this tab click on the Terminal drop-down menu to select which terminal program you want to use.

Outside of that, PCMan File Manager works just as any file manager would. You can drag and drop between different file managers if you like and, as stated above, drag and drop files between tabs (to create a new tab click CTRL-TAB).

Final thoughts

If you’re looking for an incredibly fast, easy to use file manager you shouldn’t have to look any further than PCMan File Manager. It doesn’t have all of the features it’s older siblings have, but it works incredibly fast and will fit well on your light and snappy window manager.

There are many ways to keep yourself organized. I’ve seen writers keep spreadsheets, use tools like Basket or OneNote, scratch notes on pieces of paper, or you can take the Anne Rice approach and plaster your house with Post It Notes. I prefer a much simpler task that add a simple panel applet that allows me to add files to keep track of everything I am working on at the moment. This tool? Top Shelf. In this article I am going to introduce you to this tool, how to install it, and how it works.

What is it?

Top shelf is like a combination of the Recent Documents menu and the Favorites menu, only you get to quickly determine what it contains at any given time. It lives on your GNOME panel and allows you quick and easy access to a list of files and/or their containing folders you have added. I like to use this for one project (it works best for larger projects) at a time. As the project grows, so to will the file list grow. It doesn’t matter if each file is contained in a different folder on your machine, you can add it. You can even add a shared folder from another computer if necessary (so long as you have access to that file). And, best of all, Top Shelf is very unobtrusive. You won’t even notice it until you need it.

Installation

As you probably have grown to expect, the installation of Top Shelf is simple. But Top Shelf is currently only available in binary form for Ubuntu. For other distributions you will have to install from source. To install in Ubuntu follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “top shelf” (no quotes).
3. Mark Top Shelf for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

That’s it. Now, if you are using a different distribution you will need to follow these steps:

1. Download the source from the main page.
2. Open a terminal window.
3. Change to the directory housing the download.
4. Issue the command tar xfzf topshelf-XXX.tar.gz (where XXX is the release number).
5. Change into the newly created directory with the command cd topshelf-XXX (Where XXX is the release number).
6. Change to the root user.
7. Issue the command make install

That’s it. You are now ready to add the Applet.

Adding the applet

This is as simple as adding any other applet. Right click your GNOME panel and select Add To Panel. In the new window scroll down until you see Top Shelf, select Top Shelf, and click Add. You will now see the Top Shelf Icon on your panel.

Using Top Shelf

Figure 1

If you click the Top Shelf icon the Top Shelf window will appear (see Figure 1). In this new window you can add/remove files, open any of the currently listed files, open a files’ containing folder, and change the order in which the files are listed. To open a file simply double click on the file you want to open. To open a containing folder right-click the file and select Open Folder.

Final thoughts

That is all there is to Top Shelf. As simple as this application is, you will be amazed at how much it will help you keep your current working project organized and give you quick access to those files.

In this article I will show you how to deal with such issues as handling media, handling the deletion of files, browsing Nautilus as the root user, and maybe more. Read on Macduff!

Handling media

Figure 1

If you open up Nautilus to any of your folders that contain media and double click on any of those files, most likely Nautilus will ask you what to do with that file (unless you’ve already set a default application for that file type). Did you know, however, that you can instruct Nautilus what to do with just about any media type you can think of? Sure! Here’s what you need to do:

1. Open up Nautilus.
2. Click on the Media tab (see Figure 1).
3. From the media type you are wanting to change select the action you want from the drop down.
4. From the Other Media section you can set up less common media formats, and how you want Nautilus to handle them.

That’s it. You will notice, from the drop downs, there are already applications pre-configured to handle certain media types. If you don’t see the application you want to use just select Open with other application and then (in the new window) navigate to the executable for the application you want to use (usually in /usr/bin).

Now when you double click on of those media types the action you have configured will occur.

Deleting files

Have you noticed, if you right-click a file within Nautilus, your only option for deleting a file is to send it to the Trashcan? What if you KNOW you want that file gone (and not saved for later un-deletion)? Well, that is not a problem. You can easily add a Delete option to your right-click action menu. To do this click Edit > Preferences and then, from the Behavior tab, check the box for Include a Delete command that bypasses Trash. After you have done that, click Close on the Preferences window and now, when you right-click a file, you will see a Delete entry.

Open a root user Nautilus window

There are times you just need the power of root – even in your file manager. By default the only way to do this is to open up a terminal window and issue the nautilus command with either sudo or after you have su’ing to the root user. That is not the case. Here’s what you do:

1. Open up a terminal window.

2. Issue the command sudo nano /usr/share/applications/Nautilus-root.desktop

3. Add the following to that file:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=File Browser (Root)
Comment=Browse the filesystem with the file manager
Exec=gksudo "nautilus --browser %U"
Icon=file-manager
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;System;

Save that file and then click Applications > System Tools > File Browser (Root) and (after entering the root user password) you will have a Nautilus browser open as the root user! Handy.

Final thoughts

The configurations you can undertake with the Nautilus file manager seem limitless. In this article you have seen three such configurations, but you know there are plenty more where that came from. I hope these three tips have made your Linux file browsing much easier.

In this article I am going to show you how to install this modification on a Ubuntu 10.04 distribution and how this mod affects your currently running Nautilus.

Installation

The installation actually isn’t all that tricky. You will only need run a few commands to get this working. You will, obviously, need an internet connection running. Here are the commands:

1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa
2. sudo apt-get update
3. sudo apt-get upgrade
4. <Alt>F2
5. pkill nautilus
6. <Alt>F2
7. nautilus

Here is what each of the commands does:

1. Adds the necessary repository so the mod can be installed.
2. Updates apt with the new information.
3. Upgrades your system with the Nautilus mod.
4. Opens the run dialog.
5. Kills the currently running Nautilus.
6. Opens the run dialog again.
7. Start Nautilus

Now you are ready to see what this mod will do for you.

Changes

Although the changes to Nautilus will not make you a better user, it will make Nautilus easier to use. If you click on Edit > Preferences you will immediately notice a new tab in Nautilus. That tab is Tweaks. In that tab you will find the following options:

Enable RGBA: If you are using Compiz, you will be able to have true transparency in Nautilus.

Toolbar: Do you want your toolbar vertical or horizontal?

Pathbar: You can set your pathbar to look like breadcrumbs (will require a modified theme) and do you want your pathbar inset in your toolbar (instead of having its own toolbar).

Sidebar: You can configure Nautilus to show the places button in the sidebar.

Statusbar: In this section you can enable the Zoom sliders and show the Zoom slider icons. This makes zooming in and out very simple.

View Switcher Widget: If you use a horizontal toolbar you can change the way your view switcher widget looks. You can turn it off, set it as a mini widget, or a full widget.

What does it look like?

Figure 1

The results are somewhat subtle, but if you compare your nautilus to the one shown in Figure 1 you will see how much easier to use Nautilus can be. The theme shown is not a mod theme, so the pathbar does not show up as breadcrumbs. This is the one feature I have yet to get to work as the modded themes I have found don’t have this patch included.

But you should see the differences. You can even make this more sleek by hiding the toolbar by pressing F8. If you want to open the side pane you can hit F9. To open an extra pane hit F3. The extra pane allows you to move files around without having a second Nautilus window open.

Final thoughts

The Linux community is keen on mods and Nautilus is not exempt from these mods. Although these modifications aren’t show stopping, they can make your day to day computing life in GNOME a bit easier and a bit more compact.

In this article I am going to show you a few tips and tricks that you can apply to the Konqueror web browser to make your Konqueror (and KDE) experience even more flexible and powerful than it already is.

KIO Slaves

KDE Input/Output slaves allows Konqueror to take advantage of external applications making it far more usable. Depending on what kio_slave you want to use the input for Konqueror will be different. Let’s take a look at some of the more useful slaves.

fish://

If you start an address with fish:// you are telling Konqueror to make use of the ssh protocol. With this you can connect to a remote ssh server and even copy/paste to that server from within Konqueror. To do this you would enter an address like:

fish://USERNAME@ADDRESS

Where USERNAME is an actual username on the remote machine and ADDRESS is the actual address of the remote machine. You will be prompted for a password, unless you already have this connection set up for passwordless secure shell connections (see “Five handy secure shell tips and tricks“).

imaps://USER@PASSWORD@ADDRESS:PORT

Where:

• USER is the actual user name.
• PASSWORD is the users password.
• ADDRESS is the address of the imap server.
• PORT is the port used for the imap server.

Quick search

If you enter gg: linux in the Konqueror address bar you will get a page with the Google results of the string “linux”. Konqueror has a lot of pre-configured quick search shortcuts like this. For example:

• gg – Google
• fm – Freshmeat
• froogle – Froogle
• msdn – Microsoft Developer Network
• odp – Open Dictionary
• tr – Technorati
• wp – Wikipedia

You can also create your own by issuing the command kcmshell4 ebrowsing in either the run dialog or a terminal window. In the new window click the New button and then fill out the following information:

• Search Provider Name: Give your shortcut a name.
• Search URI: The URI the site you are adding uses.
• URI Shortcuts: Comma delineated list of shortcuts.

So let’s say I want to create a short cut for searching amazon.com. To do that I would enter the following information:

• Name: Amazon
• URI: http://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=\{@}
• URI Shorcuts: az,amazon

So now if I want to do a search for the string “Linux” on amazon.com I would just enter:

az: Linux

In the address bar.

Split views

Figure 1

Not only can Konqueror do tabs, it can do split windows. Say you want to do some comparing of windows, or just want to be able to see more than one window at a time. With Konqueror you can split the view either horizontally or vertically by going to the Windows menu and selecting either Horizontal or Vertical and you can have two windows open at once for simple viewing. NOTE: Whichever window has the focus is the window that the address bar will effect. In other words, if you want to change the page on the right pane, click on the right pane and then enter the url in the address bar. If you want to close a pane <Ctrl><Shift>R will close the active window.

Final thoughts

Konqueror is a very powerful, flexible tool that can be extended well beyond its intentions. Have you found a cool trick that applies to Konqueror as either a web browser or file manager? If so, share it with your fellow Ghacks readers.

One of the most under-appreciated aspects of Thunar is the ability to create custom actions. A custom action is a user-configure item that interacts with Thunar plugins so you can quickly take action on files within a directory. Say, for instance, you want to quickly print a file. Instead of having to open that file in the dedicated application, you simple right click a file and you will see a newly created Print File custom action that I am going to show you how to create.

Creating custom actions for Thunar will really make this file manager useful. Depending on how resourceful you are, you could create some really handy actions. Some of the more useful actions you can create are:

• Print a file.
• Finding files in current folder. NOTE: For this action you will need the gnome-search-tool installed.
• Manipulating archives.
• Playing audio files.
• Burning iso CDs from file.
• Set as background.

And so much more.

So now let’s take a look at how to create customized actions.

Figure 1

The first thing you need to do is open up Thunar. This will depend upon the window manager/desktop you are using. If you can’t figure out how to open up your file manager (it should be obvious) you can always open up a terminal window and issue the command thunar. When Thunar opens (see Figure 1) click on the Edit menu to reveal the Configure Custom Actions entry. Click on that entry to open the Custom Actions window.

Figure 2

By default you will most likely only see one action included, Open Terminal Here. As you can see, in Figure 2, I have two other custom actions created: Print File and Set As Background.

First let’s create the Print File action. Click on the “+” symbol to open the Add Action window (see Figure 3).

For the most part the configurations for the new action should be obvious. In the case of the Print File action we will be using the “lp” command in order to make this happen.

Figure 3

For the custom actions you can use anything for the Name and description. Remember, though, the Name will be what appears in the Right Click menu so you will want to keep that obvious and to the point.

Also notice the “%f” in the command line. As you can see the New (or edit) action window includes a listing of what each of these switches does.  This switch is crucial to the action, because without it the customized action will have no idea what file it is working on.

If you click on the Icon button a window will open with quite a few icons to choose from. If you don’t find what you are looking for in the window that opens, click the “Select Icon From” drop down and switch to a different listing. You should be able to find a suitable icon for your action.

Before you click OK click on the Appearance Condition tab. In this tab you have to select the file types which this action applies to. Obviously you will want to select Text Files. You could also select Image Files to print images as well.

Figure 4

After you fill out the necessary information, click OK and your action is complete. Now, navigate to a file within Thunar you want to print, right click the file, and behold the new menu entry “Print File” (see Figure 4).

Now let’s create an action that will make setting a background quick and painless. This will work for Window managers like Window Maker, Fluxbox, etc. This action requires the fbsetbg command. You will create this action similarly to the Print File command. In the “command” field you will enter:

fbsetbg %f

You will also want to select only Image Files from the Appearance Conditions tab. Click OK when you have completed this action. Now when you right click on any image within Thunar you will see an entry similar to what you configured for the Name of the set background action. In my case I named the action “Set As Background”. So when I right click an image in Thunar I see “Set As Background” listed. By clicking that the desktop wallpaper instantly changes to the image desired.

Final thoughts

The Thunar file manager is an outstanding entry in the file manager space. It is fast, reliable, user-friendly, and (with the help of custom actions) customizable. See what types of custom actions you can come up with. If you have a really handy one, share it with your fellow ghacks readers.

ScanDir will process the user request and display the results in four different ways. The first view lists all file paths, names, sizes and dates. A click on a file allows the execution of the file right away. The other three views provide various information such as statistics.

The software comes with file operation tools like copy, merge or purge. It is nowhere near as comfortable as working with a file manager but it works surprisingly after some time of training.

Bookmarks can be set to be able to quickly navigate between different directories. One of the main uses of ScanDir is the ability to export and print the results. It is possible to select the information that are included in the export. A complete export will basically contain all information that have been displayed to the user prior to starting the export function.

ScanDir is a portable software for the Windows operating system that provides access to extensive search operations and export options that might be interesting for users who regularly process such data.

A start page can be configured to contain any number of selected folders of local hard drives and other devices. Firefox tries to discover the available devices automatically at first start but all of them can be edited or removed from the list. Each device is listed with a system path, an alias and other information like type.

The user can then browse those folders and devices normally by clicking on them. The functionality is basically the same than that of Windows Explorer. Several file types can be previewed by hoovering the mouse over them. Most multimedia files can be played right in the browser

Windows can be split and a folder structure can be displayed in the left sidebar as well. I would say that it is a sophisticated file manager, great for everyone who needs something like this in Firefox. I see it more as a nice proof of concept of what can be done with Firefox add-ons.

The main features that make it stand out are tabbed browsing, synchronization and the duplicate finder. Tabbed browsing is definitely the easiest to explain. Two panes are by default displayed like in any other file manager. If I wanted to open another local or remote directory I would have to open a new WinSCP instance. Capivara makes use of tabs to avoid that several instances of the same application have to be opened.

A right-click on a tab opens a menu with the option to add another tab to that pane which can connect to local or remote servers. Synchronization is the next feature. As I said earlier this is also supported by WinSCP and many other clients but Capivara supports four different modes including SHA-1 and MD5 sync.

Before files are copied and deleted they are shown in a preview pane which displays all file operations. The last feature is the duplicate finder. It compares the files and folders that reside in two root directories giving the user the options to move or delete duplicate files.

Capivara has some shortcomings though. The local file system will only be displayed if the user presses the connect button and selects it from the menu. That’s a bit complicated in my opinion. The right-click menu is not working everywhere. A user has to press a button to create a new directory while most are probably used to right-click the mouse to do so.

I’m not a huge fan of file managers because I can’t see a reason to use them these days but I know that some, including Tobey, use them daily. So, what can you do with Frigate3 ? The main purpose is to manage files effectively of course which includes queuing file operations, build in zip support, file viewers, ftp, ftps and sftp support, network support, size manager, advanced search, mp3 tagger and build in syntax highligher.

Frigate3 has a lot of features which is the major difference to my setup. I tend to use different applications for my needs and the advantage of Frigate3, and any other file manager, is that you only need to install one software to increase the functionality of your Windows operating system.

I suppose Tobey will leave a comment about the File Manager when he reads the article and it’s probably better that he does, because he knows the program way better. I guess it’s worth a look if you are looking for a file manager or use file managers.

Free commander offers some additional features that make it a valuable tool for every windows user. It is able to check and synchronise files and folders, wipe files, calculate folder sizes, split and filter files and much more. It has a built in file viewer and can read zip, cab and rar files as well as a multitude of other files.

A great feature is that it can be run not only from hard drive but also from usb stick, CD or floppy disks because it does not install itself. Just run it from the location that you’ve chosen and everything will work out fine.