The standard window of Nautilus is shown in Figure 8.2, “Nautilus Standard Window”. The default view of a folder's content is the icon view featuring just an icon and the filename for each file. If configured accordingly, a preview of the file's content can be provided, as described in Section 8.2.4, “Configuring Nautilus”. When you double-click a folder icon, a new Nautilus window opens, displaying the folder's content.

Figure 8.2. Nautilus Standard Window

To navigate between folders, use the drop-down menu in the bottom left corner of the Nautilus window. In it, find all parent folders to the current directory up to the root file system. You can select the folder you want and open it in a new Nautilus window on top of the old one or you can open just the immediate parent of the current folder by clicking ‘File’+‘Open Parent’. If you want to close these parent folders, click ‘File’+‘Close Parent Folders’.

If you prefer a browser-like file navigation, switch to the Nautilus browser interface by right-clicking a folder then clicking ‘Browse Folder’. A new Nautilus window opens, providing the normal functionality but with a browser's look-and-feel.

To navigate folders and files, use the ‘Back’, ‘Forward’, and ‘Up’ buttons as you would in a Web browser. The functionalities and configuration options described in Section 8.2.2, “File Management” and Section 8.2.4, “Configuring Nautilus” also apply to the file browser interface.

You can use drag-and-drop to perform several tasks in Nautilus. For example, you can drag any file from the desktop and drop it onto an open Nautilus window. If you have two Nautilus windows open, you can drag a file or folder from one window and drop it onto another. To copy an item, select the item, press and hold Ctrl, then drag the item to a new location.

To move files between directories, you can open the source directory containing the file you want to move, click ‘File’+‘Open Location’, type the path to the target directory, click ‘Open’, then drag the files to the Nautilus window holding the target directory. Files and folders can be moved to and from an open Nautilus window and the desktop.

If you need to create multiple copies of a file, click ‘Edit’+‘Duplicate’. For a simple cut, copy, and paste of files, use the ‘Edit’ menu or right-click the file icon then select the appropriate item from the context menu that appears. To rename a file, right-click it then click ‘Rename’.

Nautilus also supports file browsing across a network. To connect to a remote server such as FTP, SSH, HTTP, or Samba, click ‘File’+‘Connect to Server’. You are then prompted for the type of server you want to connect to as well as some additional information, such as the name of the folder you want to access, the port number, and a username. When you click ‘Connect’, the remote folder is displayed as part of the ‘Places’ panel menu and appears as a desktop icon. For any future connections, select the appropriate item from the ‘Places’ menu and provide the necessary authentication to log in to these network folders. To close these connections, right-click the desktop icon then click ‘Unmount Volume’.

Nautilus provides basic CD and DVD burning functionality. To copy data to CD or DVD, create a directory containing the data you want to burn, click ‘Places’+‘CD/DVD Creator, ’drag the folder holding the data onto the ‘CD/DVD Creator’ window, then click ‘File’+‘Write to Disc’.

MIME types determine which application should open a file when clicked in a Web or file browser. The actual file type and the MIME type of a file are closely associated with each other. An HTML file has the html file type and would be registered to have a text/html MIME type. Nautilus has built-in support for most of the common MIME types and proposes the appropriate application when you choose to open a file. In this case, it would propose a Web browser.

However, you might want to change the MIME type for certain files if you are not happy with the default applications suggested by Nautilus. Changing the default application assigned to a certain MIME type is very straightforward.

Figure 8.3. Editing the MIME Type

To edit a MIME type:

Even if a MIME type has not yet been properly registered, the procedure is the same as described above. These modifications are applied globally, which means that any file of this type is subsequently opened by the defined application.

Nautilus retrieves its default font and other preferences from the desktop configuration. To set Nautilus-specific preferences, click ‘Edit’+‘Preferences’ in any Nautilus window to open the ‘File Management Preferences’ dialog. This dialog offers five tabs (‘Views’, ‘Behavior’, ‘Display’, ‘List Columns’, and ‘Preview’) that you can use to set the following preferences:

In ‘Views’, specify a default view and select sort options and display settings. You can choose to display hidden files and backup files in the view window, set a default zoom level for folders, and arrange items in icon view so that the items in the folder are closer to each other. You can also choose to place icon captions beside the icons instead of under them.

‘Behavior’ lets you choose to single-click or double-click an item to activate it and run executable files when you click them. Alternatively, choose to display the contents of an executable file when it is clicked. The operating mode of the trash is also set here. You can activate a confirmation dialog before deletion or add a ‘Delete’ item to the ‘Edit’ menu and the pop-up menu that is displayed when you right-click a a file, folder, or desktop object. If you select an item then click ‘Delete’, the item is immediately deleted from your file system.

Use ‘Display’ to set icon caption preferences. An icon caption displays the name of a file or folder in an icon view. The icon caption also includes three additional items of information on the file or folder that are displayed after the filename. Normally, only one item of information is visible, but when you zoom in on an icon, more of the information is displayed. You can modify what additional information is displayed in icon captions.

In ‘List Columns’, specify what information is displayed in list view in Nautilus windows. Set which columns are displayed in list view and the order in which the columns are displayed.

With ‘Preview’, select whether to activate preview thumbnails for certain file types. The preview features can affect the speed at which Nautilus responds to your requests. You can modify the behavior of some of these features to improve the speed of the file manager.