Mike McBride
2002-02-11
3.00.00
KDE KControl file manager

# File Manager

In this module, you can configure various aspects of &konqueror;'s file manager functionality.

&konqueror;'s web browser functionality has its own configuration module.

## Use

The configuration options for the file manager are organized under tabs as follows:

Behavior

  This tab contains a couple of &konqueror; global options

Appearance

  This tab contains options customizing the appearance of &konqueror; windows, such as the default font text color.

Trash

  This tab contains options for customizing the default behavior of &konqueror; when you delete a file.

Previews

  On this tab, you can customize when &konqueror; should show previews.

### Behavior

Open directories in separate windows

  If this option is checked, a new &konqueror; window will be created when you open a directory, rather than simply showing that directory's contents in the current window.

Show network operations in a single window

  If unchecked, and you download a file, a dialog box will appear that shows the status of the download.

  Download Dialog Box
  Download Dialog Box

  Individual Download Dialog Box

  If you start a new transfer, another dialog box will appear. (&Netscape; users will be familiar with this behavior)

  If checked, all transfer status windows will be grouped together under a single dialog box.

  Download Dialog Box
  Download Dialog Box

  Collected Download Dialog Box

  If you choose to use the Collected download dialog box, you can delete transfers by clicking once on the transfer you want to cancel, then clicking the Delete Button on the left.

Show file tips

  Here you can control if, when moving the mouse over a file, you want to see a small popup window with additional information about that file.

Number of file tip entries

  Here you can set how many items of information are displayed.

Home URL

  This is the &URL; (⪚ a directory or a web page) where &konqueror; will jump to when the Home button is pressed.

  The default is the users home directory, indicated with a `~`.

Minimize memory usage

  This setting determines &konqueror;'s behavior when it comes to memory management. You can choose between the following options:

  Never

    Disables the minimization of memory usage and allows you to make each browsing activity independent from the others.

    &konqueror; will make no attempts whatsoever to minimize it's use of memory. If you have a very large amount of RAM, this might make &konqueror; faster. If you have insufficient RAM, it might make &konqueror; run much slower, as more information is paged to disk.

  For local browsing only (recommended)

    &konqueror; will try to minimize memory usage when you are browsing local filesystems, including network drives.

  For web browsing only

    &konqueror; will only try to minimize memory usage when you are browsing the web.

  Always (use with care)

    This setting is not recommended, and should only be used if you are very low on resources.

A word on minimizing memory usage in &konqueror;

With this option activated, only one instance of &konqueror; will exist in the memory of your computer at any moment, no matter how many browsing windows you open, thus reducing resource requirements.

Be aware that this also means that, if something goes wrong, all your browsing windows will be closed simultaneously.

### Appearance

The following settings determine how text and colors are displayed in &konqueror; File Manager mode windows.

Standard Font

  This is the font used to display text such as file names in &konqueror; windows.

Font Size

  Lets you control the size of text, while the Standard Font setting determines the font face used.

Normal Text Color

  Determines the standard text color.

Word-wrap icon text

  When checked, long filenames will be wrapped onto multiple lines, rather than showing only the part of the filename that fits on a single line.

  If you uncheck this option, you can still see word-wrapped filenames by pausing the mouse pointer over the icon.

Underline filenames

  When Underline filenames is checked, filenames will be underlined so that they look like links on a web page.

Display filesizes in bytes

  The final check box on this page determines how &konqueror; displays file sizes, when you are in one of the file manager modes that normally shows this information. If you check the Display filesizes in bytes box, then file sizes are always shown in bytes. If you leave it unchecked, then file sizes are shown in bytes, kilobytes, and Megabytes, depending on their size.

### Trash

The Ask confirmation for setting tells &konqueror; what to do when you choose to Delete, Trash, or Shred a file in a &konqueror; window. If any box is checked, &konqueror; asks for confirmation before performing the corresponding action.

### Previews

&konqueror; has a preview feature for many file types, including HTML files, images, &PostScript; and PDF, sound, web archives (if you have the appropriate &konqueror; plugin installed) and text files.

if you enable previews for one of these, files of that particular file type will not be represented by standard icons in the filemanager, but will instead be shown as miniature previews. On slow computers, the previews can take some time to show up, so you might not want to enable this feature.

In this module you can specify which protocols you wish the previews to be available for. Creating the previews requires that &konqueror; download at least part of the file, in order to create the preview. &konqueror;, like the rest of &kde; is entirely network transparent, and will treat a remote &FTP; directory just as if it was on your local hard drive. This can result in a delay, especially if you are viewing, for example, a directory full of images over a slow network connection.

For each protocol, you can independently enable or disable previews. For example, you might enable previews for NFS mounted drives if you have a fast network, but disable them for &FTP; because your internet connection is via a modem.

You can further refine the maximum size file that &konqueror; will attempt to show a preview for. The default is 1 MB. In other words, by default, if a file is 900 kb in size, and the protocol you are viewing the directory with is enabled, then &konqueror; will create a preview icon for it. If the file is 1.1 MB in size, &konqueror; will not make a preview, even if the protocol is enabled.

You can turn on and off previews on the fly from within &konqueror;. For example, if you normally want to see image previews on every protocol, but find a particular server is very slow to send you the data, you might turn it off for the present, and turn it on again later.

## Section Author

Ellis Whitehead kde@ellisw.net

Updated by Mike McBride mpmcbride7@yahoo.com