| 5.4. Managing Folders and Files with Konqueror | ||
|---|---|---|
 | Chapter 5. Getting Started with the KDE Desktop |  |
| 5.4. Managing Folders and Files with Konqueror | ||
|---|---|---|
| | Chapter 5. Getting Started with the KDE Desktop | |
Konqueror is a unified Web browser, file manager, document viewer, and image viewer. The following sections covers using Konqueror for file management. For information about Konqueror as a Web browser, see Chapter 7, The Web Browser Konqueror (↑Applications).
Start Konqueror as a file manager by clicking the house icon in the panel. Konqueror displays the contents of your home directory.
The Konqueror file manager window consists of the following elements:
The menu bar holds menu items for actions like copying, moving, or deleting files, changing views, starting additional tools, defining your settings, and getting help.
The toolbar provides quick access to frequently used functions that can also be accessed via the menu. If you hover the pointer over an icon, a short description is displayed. To the right, the toolbar features the Konqueror icon, which is animated while a directory or Web page is loaded.
The location bar shows the path to your directory or file in your file system. You can enter a path to a directory directly by typing it in or by clicking one of the directories in the display field. Delete the contents of the line by clicking the black symbol with a white X located left of the location bar. After typing an address, press Enter or click to the right of the input line.
Unlike a Windows operating system, Linux does
not use drive letters. In Windows, you would
address the floppy drive as
A:\, Windows system data is
under C:\, and so on. In
Linux, all files and directories are located in
a tree-like structure. The topmost directory is
referred to as the file system root or just
/. All other directories
can be accessed from it. In the following, find
a short overview of the most important
directories in a Linux file system:
/home holds the private
data of every user who has an account on your
system. The files located here can only be
modified by their owner or the system
administrator. Your e-mail directory is located
here, for example.
![[Note]](admon/note.png) | Home Directory in a Network Environment |
|---|---|
If you are working in a network
environment, your home directory may not be
called | |
/media generally holds any
type of drive except the hard drive of your
system. Your USB flash drive appears under
/media once you have
connected it, as do your digital camera (if it
uses USB) and DVD or CD drive.
Under /usr/share/doc,
find any kind of documentation on your Linux
system and the installed packages. The
manual subdirectory
holds a digital copy of this manual as well as
the other manuals and the release notes of the
installed version of your Linux system. The
packages directory
holds the documentation included in the software
packages.
/windows only appears if
you have both MS Windows and Linux installed on
your system. It holds the MS Windows data.
Learn more about the Linux file system concept and find a more comprehensive list of directories in Section 3.1.2, “Linux Directory Structure”.
You can hide and show the navigation panel by pressing F9. The navigation panel displays your information in a tree view. Determine which contents you want to see by clicking one of the symbols in the tab at the left of the navigation panel. If you hold your mouse pointer over an icon, a short description is displayed. For example, you can show the file system as a tree starting at the root folder or at your home folder.
The display field shows the contents of the selected directory or file. In the menu, choose between different view modes to display the contents, such as , , or . If you click a file, Konqueror shows a preview of the the contents or loads the file into an application for further processing. If you hold the mouse pointer over the file, Konqueror shows a tooltip with detailed information on the file, such as owner, permissions, or last modification date.
For performing actions like copying, moving, or deleting files, you need appropriate permissions to the folders and files involved in your action. Read more about file system permissions in Section 3.2, “Users and Access Permissions”.
![[Tip]](admon/tip.png) | Selecting Objects in Konqueror |
|---|---|
Clicking a file or a folder in Konqueror directly starts an action: a preview of the file is displayed or the folder is opened. To former users of MS Windows, this behavior may be rather unusual. If you just want to select one or several files without any other action, press Ctrl then click the object. Alternatively, alter your mouse settings in the Control Center (see Section 6.2.7, “Regional & Accessibility”). | |
To copy or move a file or folder, proceed as follows:
Right-click the object and select or from the context menu.
If you want to copy or move the object to one of the folders offered in the submenu, select the corresponding menu item and click or . Destination folders you have already used are listed in lower part of the submenu.
To copy or move the object to a different folder select . A tree view of your file systems opens where you can select the destination folder.
The quickest way to perform actions like copying or moving objects in Konqueror is the drag-and-drop method. For instance, you can easily move objects from one window to another by simply dragging them. When dropping the object, you are asked whether the objects should be moved or copied.
To delete a file or folder, proceed as follows:
Select the object and press Del or right-click the file then select from the context menu. The object is moved to the trash bin. If necessary, you can restore the file or folder from there or delete it completely. See also Section 5.3.1, “Managing the Trash Bin”.
To delete the object irretrievably, click + or press Shift-Del.
To create a new folder in Konqueror, proceed as follows:
Right-click the folder to which to add a subfolder.
Select .
In the dialog, enter a name for the new folder and click .
With Konqueror, you can decide which application should be used to open a file.
In Konqueror, click ++.
To search for an extension, enter the extension in . Only file types with a matching file pattern appear in the list. For example, to modify the application for *.png files, enter png in .
In the list, click the file type to open the setting dialog for this file type. You can change the icon, the filename patterns, description, and the order of the applications.
If your tool is not listed, click in then enter the command.
To change the order of the list entries, click the program to move then give it a higher or lower priority by clicking or . The application listed at the top is used by default when you click a file of this type.
If you need a file type that is not listed in the list, click to open a dialog where you can select a group and enter a type name.
The group determines the main type, for example, audio, image, text, or video. Your file type can usually be assigned to one of these.
Click then determine the extensions of the filename.
Specify a description in the text field and select which application to use.
Click .
| |  | |
| 5.3. Desktop Components |  | 5.5. Opening or Creating Documents with OpenOffice.org |
