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Justin's Digital Garden

Dolphin File Manager (KDE)

Dolphin is KDE Plasma’s default file manager and focuses only on file management. Dolphin is not intended to replace Konqueror as Konqueror remains a universal viewer.

User Interface

Section titled “User Interface”

UI can be customized with Configure Toolbars... from context menu.

UI Elements

Section titled “UI Elements”
  • Location bar - path
    • Bread crumb mode shows each folder name in the path to the current folder
    • Path can be edited
    • Kioslaves
      • Use an empty location bar (delete the path) can be used to open a kioslave built into KDE like fish for remote SHH, FTP, NFS, SFTP, SMB or webdav
    • If Places is hidden, an additional home icon appears next to the location allowing navigation of Places and media
  • View - files and folders
    • Open files (enter, double click)
    • Context menu for files
    • Drag and drop files
    • Toolbar can configure appearance of view
      • Icons (default) - files represented by icons of file type
      • Compact - items grouped in columns with icons
      • Details - list with name, size, modification time
        • More columns can be added by right clicking on columns
        • Folders are expandable folders which allow expanded and collapsed states visible with > and v icons
    • Preview - if enabled (Configure Dolphin > General > Previews by type), icons are based on actual file / folder contents like images previews
    • Split - two views are shown to display contents of different folders
      • Useful for moving/copying files between folders
    • Selected items:
      • Cut
      • Copy
      • Delete (move to trash)
      • Ctrl click to select multiple items
      • Shift click to select range of items
  • Places - bookmarked locations, disks, media, recent items
  • Status bar - file metadata like name, size, type
  • Menu bar
    • File, edit, view, navigation, tools commands
  • Other panels: Information (F11), Folders (F7), and Terminal (F4) – are hidden by default and can be activated
    • Information - extended information / preview of folder or file
    • Folders - Tree view structure of the file system, can be limited to your home folder
    • Terminal - Konsole, current working directory will update as Dolphin’s active view changes directories.

Tips

Section titled “Tips”
  • Add to Places by right click on a file/folder
  • Filtering files using filter bar
    • Like .mp3 to see only music files
  • Search for files
    • Search is case insensitive and does not require surrounding wildcards
    • * will match zero or more characters, ? only one single character.
    • Can be used with Baloo services, without a KIOSlave is used
  • Mount storage media - use Places panel
  • Batch rename files:
    • Select files
    • Press F2 or use menu: File > Rename
      • Enter name plus # character where the # character will be replaced by a consecutive number when renamed. # is not required if files have different extensions
  • If Kompare application is installed, it can be used to compare differences in two files/folders

Settings

Section titled “Settings”
  • Run Qt5 Setings qt5ct and set theme to Adwaita-dark and set fonts to Cantarell 12, set icon theme to Adwaita
  • Make sure to set export QTQPAPLATFORMTHEME=“qt5ct”

Run Dark theme on Windows

Section titled “Run Dark theme on Windows”

  1. Archived Methods

    Terminal window
    # Start Dolphin with Stylesheet on Windows
    dolphin --stylesheet darkstyle.qss &
    dolphin --stylesheet C:\Users\justi\Code\dotfiles-overlay\other\blue.qss &
    

    # or in Windows Powershell with persistent process
    Start-Job -ScriptBlock { dolphin --stylesheet darkstyle.qss & }
    Start-Job -ScriptBlock { dolphin --stylesheet C:\Users\justi\Code\dotfiles-overlay\other\blue.qss }
    • Switch to compact mode to get rid of alternate colour lines

Dolphin Settings Example

Section titled “Dolphin Settings Example”

Configured in dotfiles dolphinrc

  • Choose details mode, zoom to make icons small
  • Settings > Configure Dolphin
    • General
      • Sorting mode: Alphabetical, case insensitive
      • Miscellaneous:
        • [x] Switch between split views panes with tab key
        • [unchecked] Turning off split view closes active pane
        • [x] Show tooltips
    • Startup
      • [x] Show full path inside location bar
      • [x] Show full path in title bar
  • View > Adjust display style
    • [x] Show hidden files
    • [x] Show hidden files last

Configuring Dolphin

Section titled “Configuring Dolphin”

Two kinds of settings:

  • Settings that affect general behaviour of Dolphin using the Preferences Dialog. Opened using Settings > Configure Dolphin
  • Settings that determine how contents of a folder are displayed. Controlled with toolbar buttons and View menu and View Display Style dialog.
    • Display styles can be configured in General section of settings.

Settings > Configure Dolphin

Section titled “Settings > Configure Dolphin”

Things like

  • View modes for all or specific folders
  • Sorting
  • Keys
  • View interactions (tooltips, rename, splitting)
  • Previews
  • Status bar
  • Startup options affecting appearance
  • Actions submenu
  • Trash

Folder View Display Style

Section titled “Folder View Display Style”

View > Adjust View Display Style

Change settings like:

  • View mode
  • Sorting
  • Previews
  • Grouping
  • Hidden files

See Also

Section titled “See Also”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”