Nautilus Quick Reference

The Nautilus Window
Menus
Toolbar
Location Bar
Sidebar
Files, Folders, and Views
Music Files and Folders
Themes
Customizing Backgrounds
Customizing Icons

The Nautilus Window

Nautilus is a core component of the GNOME desktop environment. Nautilus provides an easy way for you to view, manage, and customize your files and folders as well as browse the Web.

Nautilus integrates your access to files, applications, media, Internet-based resources, and the Web, making it easy and fast for you to locate and use all the resources available to you.

Menus

The eight menus on the main menu bar contain options for most file- and folder-management tasks, and let you personalize your view of the applications, folders, and files on your hard disk.

The Preferences menu lets you specify your level of Linux and GNOME experience.

Toolbar

The toolbar gives you one-click browsing and searching of your computer's directories as well as locations on the Web.

Click the Home button to move to your home folder.

Location Bar

Use the location bar to enter path names, URLs, or other types of addresses.

The pop-up menu at the right end of the bar lets you choose various views - for instance, View as Icons or View as a List.

Click the + (plus) and minus - (signs) to enlarge or reduce icons in any view. Click the magnifying glass to return the icons to their original size. (If you've changed your theme, you may see a different symbol instead of the magnifying glass.)

Sidebar

The sidebar displays information about the current file or folder. Each of the tabs at the bottom of the sidebar provides additional information or help:

The Tree tab displays the tree - a hierarchical view of your computer's organization of folders and files.
The History tab lists the pathnames or addresses of locations you've previously visited.
The Help tab gives you quick access to all information resources - manuals, GNOME info pages, Linux man pages, and more.
The Notes tab provides a space for you to jot notes about the current folder, create to do lists, record status, and so forth.
The News tab displays the latest news items from your favorite news sources on the web.

Files, Folders, and Views

The pop-up menu on the Location bar lists the available views. You can view your files and folders as icons or as a list, and special views are available for specific file types. For instance, try View as Music for your MP3 files.

In list view, click the column heads to re-order the items.
In icon view, open the Edit menu and choose Lay Out Items to see the options for arranging the icons.
In any view, try zooming in and out. Zooming in on text files reveals more of their contents. Image files are represented as thumbnails, so you know at a glance which file contains which image.
In icon view, you can enlarge (stretch) individual icons. For instance, enlarge the icon for a folder you frequently need to find. Select the folder's icon, open the Edit menu, choose Stretch Icon, and use the "handles" to stretch the icon. (Left-click outside the icon when you're done stretching.)

To duplicate, rename, or delete a file or folder, right-click the item and choose from the pop-up context menu, or open the File menu and choose the option you want.

Music Files and Folders

For those who have a lot of MP3 files, Nautilus offers some expressly designed features. View as Music lets you organize your music files in a way that's best suited for music, rather than making you try to adapt views designed for text.

To see the special features, go to a folder containing MP3 files. Open the pop-up menu at the right of the Location bar, and choose View as Music.

The View as Music option presents your music folders as albums. You see a listing of titles, artists, playing times, and bit rates. Use the player at the bottom of the window to play your tunes, or simply mouse over a file to preview it.

The Set Cover Image button lets you choose a special icon for each of your music folders.

Themes

You can change the look of the Nautilus window by choosing a new Theme.

Choose the Edit Preferences item from the Preferences menu and choose Appearance; then select the theme you want. You can also add new themes.

Customizing Backgrounds

A drag-and-drop dialog box lets you apply patterned backgrounds, colors, and emblems to objects in the Nautilus window. For instance, you can choose a special background pattern for the sidebar to display each time you open a particular folder.

Open the Edit menu and choose Backgrounds and Colors. Click Patterns, Colors, or Emblems, and drag and drop to create the look you want.

For example, to customize the sidebar view of a particular folder, drag a pattern or color tile to the sidebar while the folder's icon is displayed there.

Customizing Icons

You can customize icons in several ways:

To give a file or folder a custom icon, select the item so it is displayed in the sidebar. Then drag any image to the item in the sidebar. For instance, if you have a folder containing MP3 versions of Beatles music, you can replace the folder's generic folder icon with a picture of the Beatles.

Attach emblems to files and folder simply by dragging them. Open the Edit menu and choose Backgrounds and Emblems. Click Emblems and then drag an emblem to an icon.

Open the Edit menu and choose Icon Captions. The Icon Captions dialog box lets you specify three lines of information that will appear in all icon captions in addition to the file name or folder name.

Right-click a file or folder to see its Properties dialog box. The Properties dialog box lets you choose emblems, apply a custom icon, change the file name or folder name, and edit permissions.