You can customize your folders to suit your requirements and preferences. This section describes how to customize your folder preferences.
To access the Folders preference tool, click Launch, then choose Preferences -> Desktop Preferences -> Folders.
Alternatively, you can use the File Management Preferences dialog to set preferences for the file manager. To display the File Management Preferences dialog, choose Edit -> Preferences from any file browser window.
You can set preferences in the following categories:
The default settings for views
The behavior of files and folders, executable text files, and Trash
The information that is displayed in icon captions
The order information that is displayed in list views
Preview options to improve the performance of the file manager
You can specify a default view, and select sort options and display options. You can also specify default settings for icon views, list views, and tree views. To specify your default view settings, click on the Views tab in the File Management Preferences dialog.
Table 7–6 lists the view preferences that you can modify.
Table 7–6 File Management View Preferences
Dialog Element |
Description |
---|---|
View new folders using |
Select the default view for folders. When you open a folder, the folder is displayed in the view that you select. |
Arrange items |
Select the characteristic by which you want to sort the items in folders that are displayed in this view. |
Sort folders before files |
Select this option to list folders before files when you sort the contents of a folder. |
Show hidden and backup files |
Select this option to display hidden files and backup files in the view pane. The first character in a hidden filename is a period (.). The last character in a backup filename is a tilde (~). You can hide files from the view pane by adding the .hidden extension to the filename. |
Default zoom level |
Use the drop-down list to select the default zoom level for folders that are displayed in the icon view and list view. The zoom level specifies the size of items in a view. |
Use compact layout |
Select this option to arrange the items in icon view so that the items in the folder are closer to each other. |
Text beside icons |
Select this option to place the icon captions for items beside the icon rather than under the icon. |
Show only folders |
Select this option to display only folders in the Tree in the side pane. |
To set behavior preferences for files and folders, click on the Behavior tab in the File Management Preferences dialog.
Table 7–7 lists the behavior preferences that you can modify for files and folders.
Table 7–7 File Management Behavior Preferences
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 in the File Management Preferences dialog, click on the Icon Caption tab.
Use the drop-down lists to select the items of information that you want to display in the icon caption. The following table describes the items of information that you can select from each drop-down list:
You can specify what information is displayed in list view in file manager windows. For example, you can specify which columns are displayed and the order in which the columns are displayed.
To set your preferences for list columns in the File Management dialog, click on the List Columns tab to display the List Columns tabbed section. To specify a column to display in list view, select the option that corresponds to the column, then click on the Show button. To remove a column from the list view, select the option that corresponds to the column, then click on the Hide button.
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 on the Use Default button.
The following table describes the columns that you can display:
The file manager includes some file preview features. The preview features can affect the speed with which the file manager responds to your 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 options described in the following table:
Option |
Description |
---|---|
Always |
Performs the action for local files, and files on other file systems. |
Local Files Only |
Performs the action for local files only. |
Never |
Never performs the action. |
To set your preview preferences in the File Management Preferences dialog, click on the Preview tab.
Table 7–8 lists the preview preferences that you can modify.
Table 7–8 File Management Preview Preferences
Dialog Element |
Description |
---|---|
Show text in icons |
Use the drop-down list to specify when to preview the content of text files in the icon that represents the file. |
Show thumbnails |
Use the drop-down list to specify when to show thumbnails of image files. The file manager stores the thumbnail files for each folder in a .thumbnails directory that is one level below the folder. |
Only for files smaller than |
Use the drop-down list to specify the maximum file size for files for which the file manager creates a thumbnail. |
Preview sound files |
Use the drop-down list to select an option to specify when to preview sound files. |
Count number of items |
Use the drop-down list to specify when to show the number of items in folders. If you have set your view to icon view, you might need to increase your default zoom level in the Views tabbed section to see the number of items in each folder. |
The file manager includes backgrounds that you can use to change the look-and-feel of the following screen components:
Desktop
Side pane and view pane of file browser windows
Panels
To change the background of a screen component, perform the following steps:
From the file manager, choose Edit -> Backgrounds and Emblems.
To display a list of patterns that you can use on the background, click on the Patterns button in the Backgrounds and Emblems dialog. To display a list of the colors that you can use on the background, click on the Colors button. To add an emblem to an object, click on the Emblems button.
To change the background to a pattern, drag the pattern to the screen component. To change the background to a color, drag the color to the screen component. To add an emblem to a background object, drag the emblem to the object.
Click Close.
To reset the background of the view pane or side pane to the default background, right-click on the background of the pane, then choose Use Default Background.
When you change the background of the side pane or the view pane of a particular folder, the file manager remembers the background that you chose. The next time that you display the folder, the background that you selected is displayed. That is, when you change the background of a folder, you customize the folder to display the background.
To add a pattern to the patterns that you can use on your screen components, choose Edit -> Backgrounds and Emblems in a file manager window. Click on the Patterns button, then click on the Add a New Pattern button. A dialog is displayed. Use the dialog to select the new pattern. Click OK to add the new pattern to the Backgrounds and Emblems dialog.
To add a color to the colors that you can use on your screen components, choose Edit -> Backgrounds and Emblems in a file manager window. Click on the Colors button, then click on the Add a New Color button. A color selector dialog is displayed. Use the color wheel or the sliders to choose the color. Click OK to add the new color to the Backgrounds and Emblems dialog. For more information about selecting a color, see To Select a Color.
To add an emblem to an object, choose Edit -> Backgrounds and Emblems in a file manager window. Click on the Emblems button, then click on the Add a New Emblem button. For more information about adding a new emblem, see To Add a New Emblem.