2.4 Managing Folders and Files with Konqueror

Konqueror is a unified Web browser, file manager, document viewer, and image viewer. The following sections covers using Konqueror for file management.

Start Konqueror as a file manager by clicking the House icon (Description: Personal Files icon) in the panel. You can also press Alt+F2, then type konqueror $HOME. The contents of your home directory are then displayed.

Figure 17 The File Manager Konqueror

The file manager window consists of a menu bar at the top, a toolbar, and a location bar. The lower part of the window is split vertically into the navigation panel and the main window, which displays the contents. Use the icons on the left panel of Konqueror to display a navigation pane for items such as bookmarks and devices.

For information on using Konqueror as a Web browser, see The Konqueror Web Browser.

2.4.1 The Konqueror Menu

  • Location: Opens additional Konqueror windows. If you click New Window, your home directory is displayed in a new window. Duplicate Window produces a second window with the same content. You can also send a file or a link (using the browser function) by e-mail. If you click one of these menu items, the KMail composer opens. Specify the recipient and compose a text. Depending on the selected item, the file is already attached or the link is displayed in the e-mail body. You can also print directly from this menu.

  • Edit: Most items under Edit become active only if you select an object in the main window. Standard editing functions are available. The Shred function destroys the data permanently. You can create new directories and files or change file properties, such as the file permissions. You can also grant or deny the user, a group, or all users read, write, and execute permissions. In the main window, one or several files can be selected by moving the mouse pointer over them while keeping the left mouse button pressed or by using the selection functions in the Edit menu.

  • View: Lets you change views. If a directory is very full, the text view or the tree view might be more efficient. To view HTML pages, activate Use index.html. With Lock to Current Location, you can stop animated images and, with Unlock View, you can resume the animation. Icon Size, Sort, Preview, Show Hidden Files, and Folder Icons Reflect Contents control the icons shown in the main window. You can also use this menu to select a color or image for the background.

  • Go: Contains the navigation functions and a list of recently viewed directories. You can probably access these navigation functions more quickly in the toolbar.

  • Bookmarks: Bookmarks can be Internet addresses (URL) or paths to specific files or directories on your host. If you select Add Bookmark, the current content of the location bar is saved as a bookmark. To access this location, simply click this bookmark. For practical reasons, arrange bookmarks in folders. The SUSE folder already exists; it contains bookmarks of important SUSE Web pages. Edit Bookmarks opens the bookmark editor where you can perform tasks like deleting obsolete bookmarks, renaming bookmarks, and moving bookmarks from one folder to another.

  • Tools: The Tools menu provides quick access to commonly used tools such as Open Terminal, which opens a Konsole and Find File. If you have Konqueror plug-ins installed, they also appear in this menu.

  • Settings: Configures the look and feel of Konqueror. Hide the menu bar by deactivating Display Menu Bar; press Ctrl+M to display it again. Under Toolbars, hide or display the main toolbar, an extra toolbar, the location bar, and the bookmark list. If you changed the view of a specific directory, save these changes under View Properties Saved in Directory or Remove Directory Properties.

    Using View Profiles, change the view by means of predefined patterns. The default setting is File Management. Under Load View Profile, switch to File Preview, Midnight Commander, or Web Browsing. For example, when you click the Konqueror icon in the panel, the Web browser profile is displayed. Specify individual keyboard shortcuts with Configure Shortcuts, customize the toolbar with Configure Toolbars, and configure global settings for the file manager with Configure Konqueror.

  • Window: Lets you split the main window horizontally and vertically. Remove Active View removes the split. New Tab creates an empty window in the Konqueror window. Switch between these windows with tabs. With Duplicate Current Tab, you can generate a second identical window that can be loaded to a separate Konqueror window with Detach Tab. You can also close the active subwindow.

  • Help: Gives you access to the Konqueror handbook or the What’s This? function. This function can also be accessed via the question mark symbol at the top right in the title bar. The mouse pointer is then displayed as a question mark; if you click an icon, a brief help text is displayed. The Help menu also provides a short introduction to Konqueror and the means to report bugs and other concerns to the developers. About Konqueror and About KDE provide information about the version, license, authors, and translations of the project.

2.4.2 The Toolbar

The toolbar provides quick access to frequently used functions that can also be accessed via the menu. If you mouse over an icon, a short description is displayed. Right-click a free space in the toolbar to open a menu that allows you to change the position of the toolbar, switch from icons to text, change the icon size, and display or hide the individual bars. The configuration dialog can be started with Configure Toolbars. To the right, the toolbar features the Konqueror icon, which is animated while a directory or Web page is loaded.

2.4.3 The Location Bar

The location bar is preceded by a black symbol with a white X. If you click this icon, the contents of the line are deleted, allowing you to enter a new location. Valid locations can be path specifications, like the one that appears when the home directory is displayed, or Web page URLs. After typing an address, press Enter or click Go to the right of the input line. Access directories or Web pages visited recently via the down arrow to the right of the location bar so you don’t have to retype URLs if you need to access certain contents repeatedly. For even more convenience, create a bookmark.

2.4.4 The Main Window

The main window displays the content of the selected directory. If you click a file, the file is displayed in Konqueror or loaded into an application for further processing. If you click an RPM package, the description is displayed. Install the package by using Red Carpet® or the Install Package feature in YaST.

If you right-click an icon, a menu opens. The type of menu depends on the file type; common actions such as Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete are available. Use Open With to select the application to open the file with. Files can be encrypted directly in Konqueror; however, to use this function, a key must be generated manually or in KGpg.

The quickest way to perform many actions is the drag-and-drop method. For instance, you can easily move files from one Konqueror window to another by simply dragging them. When you do this, you are asked whether the objects should be moved or copied.

2.4.5 File Preview

Konqueror can show you a preview of certain files. Normally this feature is switched on if you browse in a directory, and it only works if your Icon View is activated (click ViewView ModeIcon View). This feature is not always useful with packed (compressed) files, but if you mouse over a packed file, Konqueror opens a tooltip with additional information, such as the name, owner, and size.

You can change which files have a preview by clicking SettingsConfigure KonquerorPreviews & Meta-Data. Konqueror differentiates between Internet and local protocols. Each protocol can be activated.

Figure 18 Konqueror Previews & Meta-Data Dialog

2.4.6 File Associations

With Konqueror, you can decide which application should be used to open a file.

Figure 19 Konqueror Configure File Associations Dialog

  1. In Konqueror, click SettingsConfigure Konqueror File Associations.

  2. To search for an extension, enter the extension in the Find Filename Pattern field.

    Only file types with a matching file pattern appear in the list. For example, to modify the application for MP3 files, enter mp3 in the Find Filename Pattern field. You should see an entry for x-mp3 under the Audio heading.

  3. 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 Add in the Application Preference Order group box, then enter the command.

    To change the order of the list entries, click the program you want to move, then give it a higher or lower priority by clicking Move Up or Move Down. The application listed at the top is used by default when you click a file of this type.

  4. If you need a file type that is not listed in the Known Types list, click Add 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.

    1. Click OK, then determine the extensions of the filename.

    2. Specify a description in the text field and select which application to use.

  5. Click OK.

2.4.7 Creating an Image Gallery

Konqueror can generate an HTML file with thumbnails to help you manage extensive image collections in a directory. Open the directory in Konqueror and click ToolsCreate Image Gallery. A dialog opens where you can specify the background and foreground colors, the page title, the location to save the gallery to, and other settings. Click OK to start the action. By default, a file called index.html is created. If you click this file in Konqueror, your images are displayed in a miniaturized, organized view. Click an image to access its full-size view.

Figure 20 Konqueror Create Image Gallery Dialog