the File Manager
In and all directories are arranged in a simple inverted tree structure descending and branching down from from a single top level directory. This means that you can get from any directory to any other by going up until you reach a common point then down through the appropriate sub-directories until you reach your target.
The position of any file or directory in the tree can be described by its path, which is a simple list of the directories you would have to descend through to get to the target directory. For example /home/pam is the subdirectory pam of the subdirectory home of the top level directory, which is represented by the leading /.
Note that every accessible drive on your system, including other hard disc partitions and your floppy and cdrom, will appear in the tree descending from /. Their exact paths will depend on how your system was set up, but will usually be something like /mnt/floppy and /mnt/cdrom. See also the section on Floppy and Drives.

Navigation
is an excellent file manager, and as such will display the names of the files and sub-directories held in a directory. The path of the directory you are looking at is shown in the Titlebar and also in the Locationbar.
Sub-directories are usually displayed with an icon that looks a little like a folder, although some special directories, such as Trash and Desktop, may have different, distinctive, icons. Files have their own icons, which may indicate what type of file it is - or at least what thinks it is.
You can select a file or sub-directory by using the keyboard arrow keys to move through the displayed items. The appearance of the selected item will change and some information about it will be displayed in the Status Bar.
To move between directories you can simply step up and down the tree:
To descend into a sub-directory click on its name or icon, or if you have selected it then just press Enter.
To go up the directory tree, click on the Up button in the Toolbar, or use Alt Up Arrow, or use the Menubar Go Up option.
You can also go directly to any directory by typing its path into the Locationbar window or into the dialog box invoked by the Menubar Location Open Location item or by Ctrl O. Don't forget that in / file and directory names are case sensitive.
Once you have moved to a new directory then you can go back to your previous choice by using the Toolbar Back button, the Menubar Go Back item, or Alt Left Arrow.
Once you have gone back you can go forward. Use the Toolbar Forward button, the Menubar Go Forward item or Alt Right Arrow.
Holding the pressed while the mouse pointer is over the Toolbar Up, Back or Forward buttons brings up a menu of recently visited locations.

Automatic Path Completion
You can get to help you when you are typing a path into the Locationbar by enabling one of the Text Completion features. To select how does this right click on a clear part of the Locationbar text entry box and select Text Completion. This will let you choose between the following possibilities:
None 	What you get is what you type.
Manual 	Seems to be the same as None.
Automatic 	As you type into the Locationbar window will automatically extend what you type to complete one possible name, highlighting the characters it has added. Continue typing if that's not what you wanted or press Enter to accept it.
Drop-down List 	A drop-down window will appear as you type, showing the possible matches to what you have typed so far. When the path that you want appears in the window then double click on it with the . Or you can use the Down Arrow and Up Arrow keys to select it then press Enter.
Short Automatic 	This is like the Automatic mode except that it restricts itself to more sensible suggestions.
You should try out these different modes and pick the one that suits you best.

The Navigation Panel
If you want a better view of the directory structure, or easy access to your Bookmarks, History and Network, then the Window Show Navigation Panel option adds a new view at the left of the window as shown above. (For this screenshot the Menubar View View Mode... and View Show details... options have been used to get a text listing of the directory contents in the right hand view rather than one using icons.)
With the Navigation Panel
The Navigation Panel has a number of tabbed pages, containing tree views of your:
Bookmarks.
History.
Home directory.
Remote (web or ftp) sites.
The root directory.
When is showing more than one view, there will be a small box at the bottom right of each view. Left clicking on the box toggles an almost invisibly small icon on and off. Views showing this icon are linked. By linking the Navigation Panel and main views left clicking on any item in the Navigation Panel view will automatically show its contents in the other view.
To navigate through the items in a Navigation Panel page using your mouse, left click on a + symbol to show any subdirectories, left on the - symbol to collapse a sub-tree, and once you can see the wanted item, left click on its name or icon to open it in the other window.
Or you can navigate from the keyboard using the Up and Down Arrow keys to move up and down, the Right Arrow key to descend into a directory and the Left Arrow key to collapse a sub-directory. Once you have reached the wanted item then Enter will open it in the other view.
The Bookmarks tree contains your bookmarks, just as displayed by the Bookmarks menu.
The History tree contains URLs for the most recently visited web sites.
The Home Directory tree shown in the Navigation Panel is actually your personal home directory, which will have a path such as /home/pam2 if your username is pam2.
The Remote page tree shows details of files or web pages you can reach over your network (if you are connected to one).
The Root Directory tree has the path /, and is the base directory of your system's local files. If you expand the Root directory you will find another directory called root. This belongs to the system administrator or Super User and is her home directory. You will also find a directory called home, in which you should be able to find your own Home directory again.
There is also a Services page in the Navigation Panel, containing entries for audio CD, LAN (Local Area Network) and Print System browsers.

Finding Files and Directories
If you don't know or can't remember where a file or directory is within your system, then use the Toolbar Find file button or the Menubar Tools Find File... option. This will embed the file finder application into 's window. See the Finding Your Lost Files section of the User's manual for more details about .
If the name of a file or directory begins with a period (dot), then it is a hidden file or directory, and will not normally be shown by .
To see the hidden files or sub-directories use the Menubar View Show Hidden Files option.

Floppy and Drives
Any floppy disk or drive that you have on your system will usually appear in the /mnt directory, having a path something like /mnt/floppy or /mnt/cdrom, the details will depend on how your system was set up.
requires that you mount a floppy disk or when you have inserted it into the drive, so that can see what's on it. You also need to unmount it before removing the disk so can register that it is no longer available.
How you do this will depend on how your system:
You may have an Automount facility, in which case you don't have to bother about explicitly mounting and unmounting, although you may find that the occasionally starts up by itself for no apparent reason.
You may have Floppy and icons on your desktop, in which case click on the icon to mount a disk. Doing this should also bring up a window showing the contents of the floppy or . To unmount right click on the icon and choose the Unmount item. Visit the section Create New... to see how to create such an icon.
Or you can do it the traditional way by typing into a text console window:

mount
 /mnt/floppy

to mount, for example, the floppy drive, and

umount
 /mnt/floppy

to unmount it. Type umount not unmount.
Rather than having to open a text console to type the mount or umount commands, you may prefer to use 's Tools Execute Shell Command (Ctrl E) feature.

Deleting Files and Directories
gives you three ways to dispose of an unwanted file or directory:
You can move it to the Trash directory, which is the safest method as you can get it back when you realise that you have made a mistake.
You can just plain Delete it, which removes the entry from the directory and adds the disk area occupied by the file(s) to the system's list of free disk areas.
Or you can Shred it, which is like Delete, but also overwrites the disk area occupied by the file(s) with random data. Useful for disposing of incriminating departmental memos or similar files when you don't want any trace of them to remain on your system.
Theoretically, even shredded files can be recovered by someone with enough skill and determination.
The simplest way of removing a file or directory is to position the mouse pointer over its name or icon and press the mouse button, which will bring up a menu containing the options Move to Trash, Delete and Shred.
Or, if you have selected the item, the Menubar Edit menu will give you the choice of Move to Trash, Delete and Shred options.
Del will move a selected item or items to Trash.
Shift Del will really, truly and irrevocably delete the selected item or items.
Ctrl Shift Del will shred the selected item or items.
You won't be able to remove a file or directory if you don't have the necessary permissions, see the section on Super User Mode for further details.

Moving and Copying
To copy a file or sub-directory between directories you can:
Position the mouse pointer over its name or icon and hold down the , which will bring up a menu containing the Copy option. Choose that.
Or if the item is selected you can use the Copy button on the Toolbar or the Menubar Edit Copy item, or the Ctrl C hotkey.
Navigate to the directory you want to copy the item into then Paste the item into the new directory by using the Toolbar Paste button or the Menubar Edit Paste option or the Ctrl V hotkey, or by moving the mouse pointer to a clear area of the window and holding the down to bring up a menu containing the Paste option.
Moving a file or sub-directory between directories can be done in the same way as copying, except that you choose the Cut option or Ctrl X instead of Copy. The item that you have Cut will be removed from the original directory when you do the Paste into the new directory.
You can also copy or move selected item(s) to another directory by using Edit Copy Files or Edit Move Files, or by selecting Copy To or Move To from the drop down menu you get when you right click on an file or directory name in the File Manager window.
You may not be able to copy or move a file or directory if you don't have the necessary permissions. See the section on Super User Mode for further details.

Using Drag 'n Drop
also supports Drag and Drop copying and moving of files and directories.
You can do this by having two instances of , one showing the directory you want to copy from, the other showing the target directory. Position the mouse pointer over the item you wish to copy or move then, holding the pressed, drag it to a clear space in the target directory. Release the button and you will be presented with a menu choice of Copy or Move. Take care to drop the item into an empty area of the target directory view - dropping it on top of another file name or icon can cause problems.
You can also set up to show more than one directory within its window and drag & drop between them.
Split Views for Drag & Drop
For this screenshot we have used the Menubar Window Split View Left/Right option, also available with the hotkey Ctrl Shift L, to split the main window into two views, each showing the contents of a different directory.
When the window is split into two (or more) views it is usually best to make sure that they are not linked - the little boxes at the bottom right of each view should be empty.
The active view, that is the one whose path is shown in the Locationbar and which responds to navigation and Menubar commands, is shown by the little green light in the bottom left corner. To make a view active click on an empty area of the view or on its Status Bar.
To remove an active view from 's window use the Ctrl Shift R hotkey, or the Menubar Window Remove Active View option, or click on the Status Bar and choose the Remove Active View option from the resulting menu.

Selecting Multiple Files
You sometimes want to delete, copy or move a number of files that are similar in some way. For example you may wish to move all of the .png graphics files from one directory to another. makes this easy by letting you select multiple files based on similarities in their file names.
Use the Menubar Edit Select... item or the hotkey Ctrl +. This brings up a little dialog box in which you enter a filename containing the wildcard characters *, which matches any number of characters, and ? which matches a single character. Press OK and will highlight all files with matching names. For example;
flag*.png will select all filenames starting with the letters flag and ending with .png.
memo?.txt will select memo1.txt and memo9.txt but not memo99.txt.
When you have selected a range of files, you can narrow down the selection by uing the Menubar Edit Unselect... option or Ctrl - to specify which of the selected files should be removed from the selection.
Use Ctrl U or the Menubar Edit Unselect All option or just click on a clear area of the view to cancel the selection(s).
You can even invert the selection, that is deselect all selected files and select those that were previously unselected. Use the Menubar Edit Invert Selection option or Ctrl * to do this.
Once you have selected the right files then the normal delete, copy or move commands will act on all of the selected files at once.
Depending on your keyboard type and locale, you will probably find that the Ctrl +, Ctrl - and Ctrl * hotkeys only work with the Numeric keypad +, - and * keys.

Create New...
When is in File Manager mode picking Create New... from the Edit menu or from the drop-down menu you get by right clicking on a free area in a directory view gives you a sub-menu letting you create any of the following in the current directory:
Link To Application... 	This option is most useful if you want to create an icon that will open a particular application. It opens a dialog box with four tabbed pages. The first, General, is where you choose an Icon and the text that will appear with it. The second page, Permissions, lets you select who can use or modify the icon. In the Execute page you must enter the command that will run the application, for example kedit to start up the text editor. kedit /home/pam/todo.txt would open the file /home/pam/todo.txt in . You can generally leave the Application page blank.
To make the application icon appear on your desktop, create the link in your ~/Desktop directory (this may be called something slightly different depending on how was installed on your system) or get to the Create New... sub menu by right clicking on a free area of the desktop.
If you have a lot of specialised application links and don't want to clutter up the desktop, then why not create them in your Applications directory. You can get there in by choosing Go Applications. Then create a single icon on your desktop to open your Applications directory, which is usually at ~/.kde/share/applink.
To put an application link icon into the panel, first create it in the Applications directory then drag the icon onto a clear area of the panel.
Link To Location (URL)... 	This lets you create an icon to open at a particular directory or web page. As with Link To Application... you can make the application icon appear on your desktop by creating the link in your ~/Desktop directory or going to the Create New... sub menu by right clicking on a free area of the desktop. When you first create it the text shown with the icon will be the full path or , you can change it by right clicking on the icon, selecting Properties... and entering the preferred text in the General tab page.
Floppy Device... 	Use this option to create an icon that will mount a floppy disk and open an instance of showing the disk's contents. To unmount the disk when you have finished with it right click on the icon and select Unmount. In practice it doesn't have to be a floppy disk but can be any hard disk or partition on your system that is not normally mounted. In most cases you will want to create the icon in your Desktop.
Hard Disc... 	This option is similar to Floppy Device... but for a hard disc drive or partition.
CD-ROM Device... 	This option is similar to Floppy Device... but for a drive.
Directory... 	An easy way of creating a new (sub)directory.
Text File... 	Use this to create an ordinary, empty, text file. A little dialog box will be opened for you to enter the name of your new file.
HTML File... 	Creates a skeleton HTML source file. When you type the new file's name into the little dialog box is is probably best to give it a .html extension to avoid confusion.
Presentation Document... 	Creates a skeleton Koffice document. Give its name a .kpr extension.
Text Document... 	Creates a skeleton KOffice document using the standard style template. Give its name a .kwd extension.
Spread Sheet Document... 	Use this to create a new KOffice spreadsheet file, and name it with a .ksp extension.
Illustration Document... 	Creates a new KOffice document. Name it with the extension .kil.

Changing Name and Permissions
The easiest way to change the name of a file or directory is to right click on it and select Rename.
Or, to change the name or permissions of a file or directory right click on its name or icon and select the Properties... item. Or, if you have selected the file or directory, then you can use the Menubar Edit Properties option.
This will bring up the Properties dialog box which has two tabs:
General, which gives you some information about the item and lets you change its name and, for a directory, the associated icon.
Permissions, which shows you the item's ownership and access permissions and lets you change the permissions.

Super User Mode
If you are running as a normal user and try to access files outside of your own home directory you will often be prevented from doing so and get an error message such as Access Denied.
To access these files you need to be logged in as the system administrator, often known as the Super User or root.
Rather than logging out then in again, you can launch from the K Menu in Super User mode by selecting System File Manager - Super User . You will be asked for the root login password but as long as you can provide that will be started up with full access privileges to all files on your system.
Take care. As Super User (root), you have complete control of your system, and a wrong command can easily do irrevocable damage.
Also, connecting to the internet as root is an extremely bad idea, as it seriously increases your vulnerability to hacking.

At the Command Line
Although is a very powerful and flexible GUI file manager, there are occasions when the experienced user wants to get down to the basics and work at the text command line level.
She could, of course, open an instance of , perhaps with 's Menubar Tools Open Terminal option or with Ctrl T.
But has yet another nice feature here, the Menubar Window Show Terminal Emulator option opens up a terminal window as a new view within , and as long as the link icon is visible at the bottom right corner of each view, the terminal will follow any directory changes you make in the normal file manager view.
Including the terminal emulator