Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Ubuntu GNOME's Nautilus

Nautilus is the Swiss Army knife of the GNOME world. Nautilus is a file manager that helps you to graphically use and manage files, folders, and other resources found on your computer. Nautilus is developed as part of the GNOME project. Linux directories are the same as Windows folders.


Nautilus is an open source file manager that Ubuntu supplies to help maneuver around your computer. Nautilus is equivalent to Windows Explorer and provides all the facilities that you need to work with files, folders, and network file shares. You can start Nautilus by either

• Double-clicking any desktop icon.

• Clicking the Places menu and choosing any of the options (other than Search for Files).


Each option opens Nautilus within a specific context. The Nautilus contexts associated with each menu option are:

Home Folder: Opens with a view of your home directory.

Desktop: Displays your desktop directory in your home directory.

Computer: Shows your computer disk drives.

CD/DVD Creator: Opens a file manager window that you can drag files into and create a CD or DVD.

Network Servers: Browses network file shares. (Network file shares are folders that appear to be on your Ubuntu computer, but are really located on another machine and are accessible via a network.).

Connect to Server: Connect to a specific file share.

Recent Documents: Provides shortcuts to documents and files you've recently accessed.


Selecting the Search for Files option opens the — you guessed it — Search for Files dialog. Follow these steps:

1. Type any filename or partial filename in the Name Contains text box. By default, Ubuntu looks for the file in your home directory.

2. If you want to search a specific folder, click the Look in Folder drop-down menu and select the location. All subfolders contained within the folder — that you start your search from — are also searched. So, for example, if you start the search from your home directory and the file or folder you're looking for is in your Desktop folder, the file or folder will be found.

3. Click the Find button. For instance, type passwd in the Name Contains text box, select File System from the Look in Folder drop-down menu, and click the Find button. Ubuntu displays all the matches in the Search Results subwindow.


What you can do in Nautilus
Nautilus contains familiar file system navigation options in the menu bar:

File: Open new Nautilus windows and close existing ones; create folders and empty documents.

Edit: Cut, copy, and paste. Use the mouse cursor to cut or copy a file or files into a temporary buffer. You then navigate to another folder to which you paste the file or files. These options let you easily copy or move files from one folder to another.

View: Activate or deactivate the Main Toolbar, Side Pane, Location Bar, or Status bar.

Main Toolbar: Contains buttons that provide shortcuts to the most commonly used Nautilus functions, such as moving Up, Forward, and Back, going to your home folder, and starting the Search for Files function.

Side Pane: A submenu, located on the left side of the Nautilus window, that shows shortcuts to commonly accessed places on your Ubuntu computer. Clicking any one of these shortcuts displays the specified folder, such as
- Your home directory (folder)
- Your desktop folder
- The Ubuntu file system
- Any available disk drives

Location Bar: Located immediately below the Main Toolbar, displaying your current location. Click the leftmost button and the current location changes from an icon to the Location text box; you can type any directory name in the Location text box to change your location to that directory. You can also click the buttons that look like magnifier glasses to zoom in and out, respectively. Finally, from the drop-down menu on the far right of the Location Bar, you can change the way files and folders are displayed, from icons to a list.

Go: Provides an option to move up to the parent of the current directory view. You also get shortcuts to all standard Nautilus views (such as Home Folder, Desktop, and Network Servers).

Bookmarks: Create, edit, and delete bookmarks. Nautilus bookmarks work just like Web browser bookmarks — they create shortcuts to files and folders on your Ubuntu computer instead of the shortcuts to Web sites that Web browser bookmarks create.

Help: Opens a help system. Click Help and choose Contents to open a dialog that lets you search for various help topics.


Nautilus is also network aware, which means that you can browse for and use network file shares just like you do local ones. Nautilus networking works on both your private network (LAN) and on the Internet. Nautilus understands the following network file sharing protocols:

FTP: The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is as old as the Internet. FTP is used to transfer files between computers. It's simple and easy to use.

SFTP: This is a secure version of FTP. File transfers are encrypted when SFTP is used.

Windows SMB: Windows file shares use the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. Nautilus can browse, read, and write to Windows file shares.

WebDAV: The Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) protocol lets you read and write to Web servers that use this protocol.

Source of Information : For Dummies Ubuntu Linux For Dummies

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