Dolphin

The dedicated file manager focusing on usability

Feature Overview

• Simple to use and dedicated file manager
• Focus on usability
• Breadcrumb navigation bar
• Optional panels for convenient navigation and information display
• Remote and pseudo-filesystem file management through KIO
• Tag files and folders, and find files by content, using Nepomuk

At first look, this is a simple file manager, but it has many talents. Some features include:

• Split windows - view and use two directories at the same time
• Viewing attributes can be set (and remembered) independently for each window
• Tabbed browsing
• Use the optional informational panel on the right
• Or elect to have essential attribute information displayed in the window
• Use 'breadcrumb' navigation for speed
• One-click change to editable navigation bar
• Add Folders panel for traditional navigation
• Add a terminal in the directory you are currently browsing
• Many functions controlled by keyboard shortcuts

Tutorials

• Discover Dolphin
• File System Navigation
• Archive Management in Dolphin
• Customize the icon of a folder
• Rename multiple files at the same time

Hints, Tips and Troubleshooting

Problem: Dolphin's menu entries View -> Additional and/or View -> Panels don't have any options. Nepomuk is enabled in System Settings.

Solution: Rename the folder ~/.kde4/share/apps/dolphin (in some distros it will be ~/.kde/share/apps/dolphin) and restart dolphin. This will purge your dolphin customizations but the entries should be back. If everything works as expected you can then delete the folder. This happened to me after an upgrade from KDE 4.4 to 4.5

Problem: When I choose the application to open a specific filetype with, it seems to affect other filetypes too. It’s like Dolphin cannot tell the difference between the two different filetypes.

Solution: Probably the KDE platform does not know about one of the two filetypes, so it associates the filetype to a different, known filetype. This is common with XML-based filetypes; even if they use a file extension of their own (e.g. .xliff or .graphml), if they are not a filetype known by the KDE platform, they will be treated as any other XML file, and opened with the default application to open XML files.

To solve this issue, you can use File Associations to create an entry for the unrecognized filetype.

Also see the Dolphin Website and the Dolphin Handbook.

Keywords

File management, file manager, file browser, tags, metadata, Nepomuk