Nautilus Preferences
Use the File Management Preferences dialog to customize the file manager to suit your requirements
and preferences.
To display the File Management Preferences dialog, choose ->. You can also access this dialog directly from the top panel Menubar
by choosing ->->.
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 and the date format.
The columns that appear in the list view and their order.
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 and list views.
To specify your default view settings,
choose ->. Click on the Views tab to
display the Views tabbed section.
Table 6.9, “Views Preferences” lists the views preferences that
you can modify.
Table 6.9. Views 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. This can be either the icon view or the list view. |
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 a folder. |
Show hidden and
backup files
|
Select this option to display files that are normally not shown in folders. For more on hidden files, see the section called “Hidden Files”. |
Icon View Default zoom level
|
There are two settings, one for the icon
view and one for the list view. Select 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
|
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 your preferences for
files and folders, choose ->. Click on the Behavior
tab to display the Behavior tabbed section.
Table 6.10, “File and Folder Behavior Preferences” lists the preferences that you can
modify for files and folders.
Table 6.10. File and Folder Behavior Preferences
Option |
Description |
Single click to activate items
|
Select this option to perform the default action
for an item when you click on the item. When this option is selected, and
you point to an item, the title of the item is underlined. |
Double click to
activate items
|
Select this option to perform the default action for an item when you double-click
on the item. |
Always open in browser
windows
|
Select this option to use nautilus in browser mode
rather than spatial mode. Selecting this lets you browse your files and folders in the same window, otherwise you will navigate your files and folders as objects. |
Always use text entry location bar.
|
Select this option to force Nautilus to use the Location bar in location field mode instead of the button bar mode by default. For more on using the location bar see the section called “Using the Location Bar”. |
Run executable text files when they are clicked
|
Select this option to run an 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 clicked
|
Select this option to display the contents of an executable text file when you
choose the executable text file. |
Ask each time
|
Select
this option to display 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
|
Select this option to display a confirmation message before Trash is emptied, or files are deleted. Leave this selected unless you have good reason not to. |
Include a Delete
command that bypasses Trash
|
Select this option to add a menu item to
the following menus:
When you select an item then choose the menu item, the item is deleted from your file system
immediately. There is no way to recover a deleted file. Do not select this unless you have good reason to.
|
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 ->.
Click on the Display tab to display the Display tabbed section.
Select the items of information that you want to display in the icon
caption from the three drop-down lists. Select the first item from the first
drop-down list, select the second item from the second drop-down list, and
so on. The following table describes the items of information that you can
select:
The date Format option lets you choose how the date is displayed throughout Nautilus.
You can specify what information 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 ->.
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 include 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:
To set your preview preferences, choose ->. Click on the Preview tab dialog to display the Preview
tabbed section.
Table 6.11, “Preview Preferences” lists the preview preferences that
you can modify.
Table 6.11. Preview Preferences
Dialog Element |
Description |
Show text in icons
|
Select an option to specify when to preview the
content of text files in the icon that represents the file. |
Show thumbnails
|
Select
an option to specify 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
|
Specify the maximum
file size for files for which the file manager creates a thumbnail. |
Preview sound
files
|
Select an option to specify when to preview sound files. |
Count number of items
|
Select an option to specify 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. |
