Nautilus is the graphical file manager (along with a few other nice features) in GNOME. Most users only use the bare minimum features of Nautilus (including me, as I’m mainly a console jockey) and don’t realize how powerful and flexible Nautilus truly is.
- Managing Nautilus from the keyboard
- Advanced file permissions
- Desktop Settings
- Special locations and Remote connections
- Tips and Tricks
Managing Nautilus from the keyboard
You don’t have to be slowed down by the mouse just because you are using a GUI. Nautilus has great keyboard shortcuts that will allow you to use it quickly and effectively.
Here is a quick table of the shortcut keys and their functionality
| Key(s) | Action |
|---|---|
| Searching | |
| Start Typing | Select the matching name of a file or directory |
| CTRL+F | Search filenames and content of indexed files |
| CTRL+S | Selects all files or directories matching a pattern |
| Display and Window Management | |
| CTRL+N | Create a new Nautilus window |
| CTRL+W | Close a Nautilus window |
| CTRL+SHIFT+W | Close all Nautilus windows |
| CTRL+1 | View files in icon mode |
| CTRL+2 | View files in list mode |
| F9 | Toggle sidebar pane |
| File Management | |
| CTRL+H | Show hidden files |
| CTRL+SHIFT+N | Create a new folder |
| CTRL+T or Del | Delete the file or directory and move to the trash |
| Shift+Del | Delete the selected file or directory and skip the trash |
| F2 | Rename the selected file or directory |
| Alt+Enter | View properties of the selected file or directory |
| Movement | |
| CTRL+L | Move into the location bar |
| Alt+HOME | Go to your $HOME folder |
| * or + or SHIFT+RArrow | Expand Directory in list view |
| – or SHIFT+LArrow | Close Directory in list view |
| ALT+LArrow | Browse through files and folders to the left |
| ALT+RArrow | Browse through files and folders to the right |
| ALT+UArrow | Move to the parent folder one level above |
| ALT+DArrow | Open the selected file or folder |
| Accessibility | |
| CTRL++ | Zoom in |
| CTRL+- | Zoom out |
| CTRL+0 | Normal zoom |
Advanced file permissions
The default UI for managing file permissions in Nautilus is a simple cutdown version that I find hard to use compared to the “advanced” view. Here is a screenshot of the advanced view:
Enable this view by changing the gconf setting show_advanced_permissions in /apps/nautilus/preferences/ to True, either by using gconftool-2 in console or the GUI tool gconf-editor.
gconftool-2 –type bool –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_advanced_permissions True
Desktop Settings
The default icons that show up on your desktop are also managed through gconf. Here are some of the important settings:
Disable the desktop completely (don’t show any desktop icons)
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop –type bool False
Hide the $HOME folder icon
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/home_icon_visible –type bool False
Display the computer icon
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/computer_icon_visible –type bool True
Hide the trash icon
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_visible –type bool False
Hide volumes (sshfs mounts, auto mounted removable disks, etc)
gconftool-2 –set /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible –type bool False
Special locations and Remote connections
Nautilus provides some special locations which provide additional functionality, they can be accessed from the “go” menu or by typing them in the location bar.
- computer:/// – A list of all mounted devices on the system
- burn:/// – Allows you to copy files to it and burn them to a CD/DVD
- network:/// – A list of servers on the network
You can also access remote file systems from nautilus using ssh, sftp, and samba. You can do this by using the protocol in the address bar (ssh://,smb://,sftp://), like:
sftp://user@server:port/directory/on/server
Or you can use a very convenient UI from File -> Connect to server. Here is a screenshot of that in action:
Tips and Tricks
Preview audio files
You can preview sounds in Nautilus by turning on Edit -> Preferences -> Preview -> Preview sound files. With this enabled, when you hover over any audio file, it’ll start playing.
You can also enable/disable this setting through gconf
gconftool-2 –type bool –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/preview_sound True
Custom scripts
Nautilus allows us to create our own custom scripts and have them execute from the right click menu, lets create an open as root menu item. In ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ create a file called “Open as Root” with the following code in it:
#!/bin/bash
for uri in $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS; do
gnomesu gnome-open “$uri”
done
And now you’ll get a menu similar to:
Document Templates
If you’ve ever right clicked on your desktop, you have probably seen the menu “Create Document” but never gave it any thought because the majority of distros ship this menu blank. But I’ve found it is really handy when working with files with similar content. To create your own templates you create the folder ~/Templates and place any type of file inside there, it could be an open office spread sheet or a simple text file. You can download a collection of nice default templates from here. Here is what your menu could look like!
Conclusion
This should get you started on using Nautilus more effectively. If you want to learn more about Nautilus settings and other options you can tweak, you should check out the Nautilus gconf documentation here.
sumber : http://opensuse-tutorials.com/
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