Nautilus is the file manager for the
GNOME desktop. Nautilus was designed,
however, to be much more than a simple file
manager. Nautilus allows you to
configure your GNOME desktop, configure your Red Hat Linux system, play
your mp3s, browse your photo collection, access your SMB
network, surf the Web, and more all from the same interface. In
essence, Nautilus becomes a "shell"
for your entire desktop experience.
Working in Nautilus is efficient and
easy, and it provides an alternative to searching through the
various sub-menus connected to the . The following sections explain how to use the
Nautilus to make your desktop
experience easier.
To start Nautilus as a file manager, double-click on
your home directory icon:
Once you have Nautilus,
you can navigate through your home directory or the rest of the file
system. To return to your home directory, click the
Home button.
When you are navigating through your file system, you will
always be able to see where you are by looking at the frame on
the left hand side of Nautilus
which shows you the current directory.
The main frame contains folders and files which you can
drag with your mouse to move and copy them into new
locations. If you prefer, you may click on the
Tree tab on the bottom left to display
a hierarchical view of your complete file system which may
make moving and copying easier for you.
If you do not want to use the tree view, you can always open another
Nautilus window by selecting
=> . Once
you have another Nautilus window, dragging
files to different directories is easy to accomplish. By default,
dragging a file from one directory to another will move the file. If you
wish to copy the file to another directory, press the
[Ctrl] key while dragging and dropping the file.
By default, text-based files and images in your home directory will
be seen as thumbnails. For text files, this
means you will see the beginning of the actual text in the icon. For
images you will see a scaled-down version of the image. To turn off
this feature, select =>
. Select Speed
Tradeoffs from the menu on the left. Select
Never for the visual enhancements that you
want to disable. Disabling these features will increase the speed of
Nautilus.
