Setting File Manager Preferences

Use the File Management Preferences dialog to customize the file manager.

To display the File Management Preferences dialog, choose Edit → Preferences. You can also access this dialog directly from the top panel menubar by choosing System → Preferences → File Management.

You can set preferences in the following categories:

Default settings for views
Behavior of files and folders, executable text files, and Trash
Information that is displayed in icon captions and the date format
Columns that appear in the list view and their order
Preview options to improve the performance of the file manager
How removable media and connected devices are handled

Views

You can specify a default view, and select sort options and display options. You can also specify default settings for icon views and list views.

To specify your default view settings, choose Edit → Preferences. Click the Views tab. The following table lists the Views preferences that you can modify.

Table 8-9 Views Preferences

Dialog Element	Description
View new folders using	Determines the default view for folders. When you open a folder, the folder is displayed in the view that you select: the icon view, the list view, or the compact view, which is a variant of the icon view that is organized in columns rather than rows.
Arrange items	The characteristic by which you want to sort the items in folders that are displayed in this view.
Show hidden and backup files	Displays files that are not shown in folders. For more information about hidden files, see Viewing Hidden Files.
Default zoom level in the Icon View, Compact View, or List View sections	Sets the default zoom level for folders that are displayed in this view. The zoom level specifies the size of items in a view.
Use compact layout	Arranges the items in icon view so that the items in the folder are closer to each other.
Text beside icons	Places the icon captions for items beside the icon rather than under the icon.
All columns have the same width	Ensures that all columns in a compact view have the same width.
Show only folders	Displays this option to display only folders in the Tree in the side pane.

Behavior

To set your preferences for files and folders, choose Edit → Preferences. Click the Behavior tab. You can set the preferences described in the following table.

Table 8-10 Behavior Preferences

Dialog Element	Description
Single click to open items	Performs the default action for an item when you click the item. When this option is selected and you point to an item, the title of the item is underlined.
Double click to open items	Performs the default action for an item when you double-click the item.
Open each folder in its own window	Sets the default to spatial mode rather than browser mode. Spatial mode enables you to browse files and folders as objects in their own window. Otherwise, you must navigate the files and folders as objects in the same window.
Run executable text files when they are opened	Runs a text executable file when you choose the file. An executable text file is a text file that can execute, that is, a shell script.
View executable text files when they are opened	Displays the contents of an executable text file when you choose it.
Ask each time	Displays a dialog when you choose an executable text file. The dialog asks whether you want to execute the file or display the file.
Ask before emptying the Trash or deleting files	Displays a confirmation message before the Trash is emptied, or files are deleted.
Include a Delete command that bypasses Trash	Adds a Delete menu item to the following menus: Edit menu Pop-up menu that is displayed when you right-click a file, folder, or desktop object When you select an item and then choose Delete, the item is deleted from the file system. You cannot recover a deleted file.

Display

An icon caption displays the name of a file or folder in an icon view. The icon caption also includes three additional items of information on the file or folder. The additional information is displayed after the file name. Normally only one item of information is visible, but when you zoom in on an icon, more of the information is displayed. You can modify what additional information is displayed in icon captions.

To set your preferences for icon captions, choose Edit → Preferences. Click the Display tab.

Select the items of information that you want to display in the icon caption from the three drop-down lists. The following table describes the items of information that you can select.

Information	Description
None	Displays no information for the item.
Size	Displays the size of the item.
Type	Displays the description of the MIME type of the item.
Date Modified	Displays the last modification date of the item.
Date Accessed	Displays the date that the item was last accessed.
Owner	Displays the owner of the item.
Group	Displays the group to which the item belongs.
Permissions	Displays the permissions of the item as three sets of three characters, for example, -rwxrw-r--.
Octal Permissions	Displays the permissions of the item in octal notation, for example, 764.
MIME Type	Displays the MIME type of the item.
Location	Displays the full UNIX pathname of the item.
Restore	Indicates whether the item is present on the file system and verifies whether its contents are changed when viewed in a ZFS snapshot by using Time Slider.

The date Format option enables you to choose how the date is displayed throughout the file manager.

List Columns

You can specify the information that is displayed in list view in file manager windows. You can specify which columns are displayed in list view, and the order in which the columns are displayed.

To set your preferences for list columns, choose Edit → Preferences. Click the List Columns tab.

To specify a column to display in list view, select the option that corresponds to the column, and then click Show. To remove a column from the list view, select the option that corresponds to the column, and then click Hide.

Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to specify the position of columns in list view. To use the default columns and column positions, click Use Default.

The following table describes the columns that you can display.

Information	Description
Name	Displays the name of the item.
Size	Displays the size of the item.
Type	Displays the description of the MIME type of the item from the File Types and Programs preference tool.
Date Modified	Displays the last modification date of the item.
Date Accessed	Displays the date on which the item was last accessed.
Group	Displays the group to which the item belongs.
MIME type	Displays the MIME type of the item.
Octal Permissions	Displays the permissions of the item in octal notation, for example, 764.
Owner	Displays the owner of the item.
Permissions	Displays the permissions of the item as three sets of three characters, for example, -rwxrw-r--.
Restore Information	Indicates whether the item is present on the file system and verifies if its contents are changed when viewed in a ZFS snapshot using Time Slider.

Preview

The file manager include some file preview features. The preview features can affect the speed with which the file manager responds to requests. You can modify the behavior of some of these features to improve the speed of the file manager. For each preview preference, you can select one of the following options.

Always	Performs the action for both local files, and files on other file systems.
Local Files Only	Performs the action for local files only.
Never	Never performs the action.
Visualize ZFS snapshots timeline	Specifies whether you are able to view previous snapshots of a folder in its File Manager window, using the View → Restore menu item.

To set your preview preferences, choose Edit → Preferences. Click the Preview tab.

The following table lists the preview preferences that you can modify.

Table 8-11 Preview Preferences

Dialog Element	Description
Show text in icons	Specifies when to preview the content of text files in the icon that represents the file.
Show thumbnails	Specifies when to show thumbnails of image files. The file manager stores the thumbnail files for each folder in a `.thumbnails` directory in the user's Home folder.
Only for files smaller than	Specifies the maximum file size for files for which the file manager creates a thumbnail.
Preview sound files	Specifies when to preview sound files.
Count number of items	Specifies when to show the number of items in folders. When in icon view, you might need to increase your zoom level to see the number of items in each folder.

Media

You can configure how the file manager handles removable media and devices that are connected to the computer, such as music players or cameras. For each media format or device type, the file manager offers to run one of the applications that are known to support this format, as well as the following options.

Option	Description
Ask what to do	Asks for the desired action when the media or device appears.
Do Nothing	Does nothing
Open Folder	Treats the media or device like an ordinary folder and opens it in a file manager window.
Open with other Application	Displays the file manager application chooser dialog, so you can select an application to run. Note that applications known to handle the media or device can be chosen directly from the drop-down list.

The most common media formats can be configured in the Media Handling section: audio CDs, video DVDs, music players, cameras, and software CDs.

To configure the handling for other media formats, first select the format in the Type drop-down list, and then select the desired handling for this format in the Action drop-down list.

The following table lists other media handling preferences that you can modify.

Table 8-12 Media Preferences

Dialog Element	Description
Never prompt or start programs on media insertion	Prevents the file manager from showing dialogs or running programs when media or devices appear. When this option is selected, the preferences for handling of specific media formats are ignored.
Browse media when inserted	The file manager will automatically open a folder when media is inserted. This setting applies only for media formats for which the handling has not been explicitly configured.

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