User Interface The OFM file manager concept contains many features that make them powerful enough to belong among the best file managers today. The interface is simple: left panel, right panel and a command line below. Because of interaction between these three items the file managing will become more efficient. If you would like to know how &krusader; works you can try it yourself, just install it on your computer. To accept an &ofm-url; like &krusader;, the user needs to get used to new ideas that are actually already 20 years old. If you prefer to waste time and lose a lot of productivity, you can always continue to use one panel file managers that are based on &Windows; Explorer.

&krusader; Main Window

The User Interface is based on &ofm-url; paradigm, a 20- year old principle that has proven its bones. It is known as simple, easy and powerful. In the following sections we will cover the basic functions of each part with the exception of: The Menu Bar which has a chapter of its own. The Bookmarks which has a chapter of its own. The Status Bar shows the properties of the current file (that is being) in focus. You can use "drag and drop" to drop a &URL; "into" the Status Bar. &krusader; comes with several Toolbars. Toolbar Main Toolbar

Main Toolbar

The &krusader; Main Toolbar, is a standard &kde; toolbar that can be dragged around the application or configured via a Right-Click menu. You can decide whether or not you want to display it each time you start &krusader; in the &konfigstartpg-lnk;, and you can toggle its use in the current session in the &viewmenu-lnk;. The Main Toolbar contents can be configured from the Configure Toolbars in the &settingsmenu-lnk; or the Toolbar tab in the &konfiglookandfeel-lnk;. Since various commands and options in &krusader; are context-dependent, some commands are not always available. The icon of an inappropriate or inactive action will be deactivated (grayed-out) disabling its use. &bookmarks-lnk; can be placed into the Main Toolbar and the Actions Toolbar with the mouse using "drag and drop". Toolbar Actions Toolbar &useractions-lnk; and &bookmarks-lnk; can be "plugged" into the Actions Toolbar. To show it, use View Show Actions Toolbar . To add user actions, use Settings Configure Toolbars and select Actions Toolbar. You can, for example, drag the Actions Toolbar to the right side using the mouse. Toolbar Location Toolbar Below the Main Toolbar there is a Location Toolbar for each panel. It shows the path the panel is currently pointing to. If the selected path is too long, it will be automatically shortened and an ellipsis "..." will replace the omitted part of the path name. When entering archives the path will be displayed in the following format: "archive name:/directory/archive_filename/the directory inside the archive". This format makes the paths uniform and easy to read. The Location Toolbar supports also &kioslaves1-url; but not all of them, some can only be used with the viewer and some can not be used. The user can enter a desired path by clicking on it. /mnt/cdrom/ settings:/ will browse and open entries of the KDE control center. devices:/ gives an overview of the devices ⪚ floppy or CD-ROM drives. trash:/ opens &kde; is trash. ipod:/ uses the &kio-ipodslave-url; to access, upload and organize the music stored on &appleipod;. And last but not least &remote-connections-lnk; . You can copy-paste a &URL; in the Location Toolbar or use a middle click. With the Right-Click menu you can configure the auto-complete function. An optional Clear Location Toolbar button is also available. Quick Navigation: &Ctrl;point with mouse in the middle of &URL; of the Location Toolbar. A pop-up window shows the next &URL; location. Pressing &Ctrl;+ &LMB; shows the location where the mouse was pointing to. This feature allows faster navigation in a big directory tree. Toolbar Panel Toolbar Each panel has a configurable Panel Toolbar. The complete Panel Toolbar or specific buttons can be made visible or be hidden. OpenDir Button: opens the directory browser. Equals Button (=): changes the panel directory to the other panel directory. Up Button (..): changes the panel directory to the parent directory. Home Button (~): changes the panel directory to the home directory. Root Button (/): changes the panel directory to the root directory. Sync-browsing Button: when active, each directory change in the specific panel is performed in the other panel as well. The &krusader; panels are where most of the action takes place. Currently, there are two types of panels: &list-panel-lnk;: shows the files and directories. &popup-panel-lnk;: has several display modes: Preview, Tree, Quickselect, View and Disk Usage for the file or directory that has the focus. The PopUp Panel may be left open or closed, as desired. &krusader; is a "twin-panel" file manager so there are two panels: the "Left" panel and the "Right" panel, or a more important logical distinction, the *Active* panel and the *Inactive* panel. The active panel is the one that will accept your mouse and keyboard input. If you choose a command from the Menu-Bar or Toolbar the command will act upon the selected files/directories in the active panel. You can switch between panels using the key or by clicking on the Information or Totals labels, or by selecting any file in a panel with the mouse. As always, default startup settings can be modified with the &konfigstartpg-lnk;, and you control the current session with the &viewmenu-lnk;.

List Panel

Panel List Panel This is the default panel and the one you will probably use most of the time. This panel shows the contents of one directory which can be local (part of your mounted file systems, either a native file or the files inside an archive) or remote files (accessed via &FTP; or Samba). There are two modes: Detailed View that shows the file names, file size, creation date and time and their attributes. And Brief View that shows only the file names, the number of brief columns can be changed, by right clicking on the Name header. File copy/paste/cut via clipboard between &konqueror; and &krusader; &Ctrl; c, &Ctrl; v, &Ctrl; x is supported. &Alt;&Ctrl; r toggles the List Panel between horizontal and vertical mode. The following items are available: Information Label : shows how much free space is physically available on the file system, the file system capacity and where the path is mounted. If the information is not available (most often in the case of remote file system) a message will be displayed with the reason for unavailablity instead of the information. The Media button on the left of the Information Label displays a list of all available media, where you can select the desired media (hdd partition, dvd, usb-stick, &etc;). The context menu gives several options like Mount, Open in a new tab, &etc; The Media button is configurable. Column Headers : here you can change the sort order of the files and directories as desired. The default sort order is by Name. The sort order can be instantly changed by clicking on one of the Column Headers. To reverse the sort order, click a second time on the Column Header. An arrow will appear on the right of the Column Header text, showing the sort direction (Up arrow = A to Z sorting, Down arrow = Z to A sorting). Default &useractions-lnk; set a keybinding for the Column Headers. The default Column Headers are: Name, Ext, Size, Modified, rwx. Predefined Atomic extensions like tar.gz are shown as one part in the Ext Column. More optional Column Headers are available with the &RMB;. The width Column Headers can be changed with the mouse by single clicking and moving the divider line to the desired width (keep the mouse button pressed). Both List Panels remember the sort order and column width. The Column Headers can be changed and saved individually to each panel. File List : displays the files and directories in the browsed directory. The &quick-search-lnk; allows you to search for files by typing their names, or the first few characters of a file name. Pressing &Enter; or double clicking on a file will open/execute that file. You can select/unselect files using the mouse with the Insert key or the &editmenu-lnk;. Totals Label : selecting or deselecting files will change the Totals Label at the bottom of the panel, which displays how many files you have selected (and how much total disk space they use) as well as the total file and disk usage of the current directory (as opposed to the information label that displays information for the whole file system). If a directory contains a lot of subdirectories, it may not be possible to drop the &URL; onto the panel (on which only directories are visible), but the &URL; can be dropped onto the "Status Bar" or "Totals Label" instead. When a custom filter is set, it will show the setting, example: [*.cpp]. When using the "&kde; default colors", then the selected files are shown in blue and the current file is surrounded by a fine-lined rectangle. By default an icon is shown according to the file type. Use &konfiglookandfeel-lnk; to change the default configuration to meet your individual needs. Some useful List panel&keybindigs-lnk;: &Ctrl; r will refresh the panel. Focus a file or directory on the left panel, press &Ctrl; Left arrow and the right panel changes: On a file: the right panel gets the same path as the left panel. On a directory: refreshes the right panel with the contents of the directory. For the right panel: press &Ctrl; Right arrow and the left panel will change. Panel PopUp Panel (3rd Panel) This is "&krusader; is 3rd Hand" or the 3rd Panel, click on the arrow-up button on the left of the Totals Label or &Alt; Down-Arrow to open the PopUp Panel. This panel has several display modes which can be activated by clicking on the appropriate button. Preview Panel : gives a preview of the file that has the focus (currently selected file). Tree Panel : is used to quickly browse the local directory tree. This panel behaves like the list panel but only one directory may be selected at a time and double clicking or pressing &Enter; on a directory will open that directory in the active panel. The panels fully support drag and drop (copy, move, link) mouse actions. Quickselect Panel : is used to quickly select files, ⪚ *.pngand click on the "Go" button. The "floppy" button stores the current selection. The "select group dialog" is also available. Viewer Panel : views a text file, views an image, &etc; A thumbnail view is generated whenever you open the Viewer Panel and click on a name of a folder that contains pictures. Disk Usage Panel : views the &diskusage-lnk; of a directory. If needed you can resize the window ⪚ to better display a picture or view a file is contents. Click on the arrow down button to close the 3rd Hand Panel. Both panels remember recently visited folders. Click on the "Folder history" button ("watch" symbol) to open the folder history list. Here you can quickly change to previously visited folders. The currently focused folder is checked. On every new start of &krusader;, the history list is empty. This part of the GUI can have four modes: Command Line, Terminal Emulator, show both and show none. You can choose your mode of operation either on start-up with the &konfigstartpg-lnk;, or for the current session with the &viewmenu-lnk; .

Command line

The traditional command line mode offers a single line of input to enter commands, it also features three buttons: "command history" (down arrow) to quick open previous used commands "Useraction expander" (green plus button) to add easy Useraction placeholders "run in terminal mode" (console icon) button with the next options: Start and Forget Display Separated Standard and Error Output Display Mixed Standard and Error Output Start in New Terminal Send to Embedded Terminal Emulator When you start typing your commands, the command line auto-completion feature will make its offers according to what you choose in the &kcontrolcenter;. If you want to change the way auto-complete behaves in the current &krusader; session, right click on the command line and change it. To the left of the input line you can find the local path that the active panel is currently pointing to. This path is where your command will be executed. Typing cd <directory> in the command line will also cause the active panel to point to this directory. Click here to view the command line keybindings.

Terminal emulator

The terminal emulator mode is in fact a small console and acts like one. You can change the active directory in the terminal by using the cd command. The terminal emulator will follow the active panel directory. When you drag a file from the "List Panel", you will get to choose between: "Paste", cd, mv and ln. If you drag multiple files, then cd will not be available. A full-screen terminal emulator can be used when configured or &Ctrl; f toggles between normal and full screen mode. If the command line is hidden, press &Ctrl; up to focus the terminal emulator. &Ctrl; down brings you back down. &Ctrl; Enter and &Ctrl; Shift Enter paste the filename. You can close the emulator by typing exit . Click here to view the Terminal emulator keybindings..

Function (FN) Keys Bar

This bar gets its name from the function (FN) keys it represents. For each button on this bar there is a corresponding function key that performs the same action. This bar is derived from the design of the first twin-panel file managers and the FN keys usually act the same way with two changes: the F2 key will open a terminal at the last local path that the active panel pointed to, and the F9 key is used to rename files. Mkdir F7 can create whole directory trees on the fly ⪚ foo/bar/test. You can choose to display or not the FN keys bar when starting up &krusader; via the &konfigstartpg-lnk;, and you can toggle its use in the current session with the &viewmenu-lnk;. The actions and &keybindigs-lnk; performed by the function keys are configurable since version 1.51, they will remain active with or without the FN keys bar displayed.

Folder Tabs

With &folder-tabs; you can quickly change to multiple folders; each panel has its own &folder-tabs;. The &folder-tabs; positions are saved when closing &krusader;. To switch between &folder-tabs;, click them with the mouse. Squeezed &folder-tabs; have tooltips to display the full path. The following &folder-tabs; operations are available: To open a new tab and keep the current directory: &right-click; on a directory and select open in a new tab, or use the &MMB;, or use &Alt;&Ctrl; n. To duplicate a tab: &right-click; on the Folder Tab and select duplicate tab, or use &Alt;&Ctrl;&Shift; n. To close a tab (except the left tab): &right-click; on the tab and select close tab, or use the &MMB;, or use the Folder tab "red cross" button, or use &Alt;&Ctrl; c. To create a "home" tab: click on the Folder Tab Bookmark button. To change tabs: &Shift; Left Arrow or &Shift; Right Arrow. To open the current folder in a new tab: use &Ctrl;&Alt;&Enter;. Several buttons for fast operations are available: Main Toolbar, Actions Toolbar, Panel Toolbar, Location Toolbar, Media, Folder history, Bookmarks, Tab, Commandline, Function keys.