Dolphin 22.12
With a bit of configuration, Dolphin can scale up to a power user’s tool.
Dolphin is a fairly traditional file manager with a lot of its functionality disabled by default. On first launch, you’ll probably quickly get the gist of how to use it. The main area displays the files, and there is a second pane on the left-hand side that contains user bookmarks along with notable system locations, such as removable media, the waste bin and network locations. There’s a status bar at the bottom of the window, and this integrates the zoom slider. So far, so standard…
Traditionally, KDE applications have tended towards the needs of power users, and in our opinion, it’s a shame that Dolphin’s default layout configuration is so tame. Removing clutter is one thing, but we usually end up having to enable a few options in order to get at the more advanced features. So, let’s nerd things up a notch or two and transform Dolphin into a power user’s file manager.
Because this is a file manager we’re talking about, you might appreciate switching on the traditional menu bar (Ctrl+m) rather than relying on the pull-down, quickaction menu. In the main window, we can clutter things up (because we like it) by adding the file and directory size underneath the icons (View > Show Additional Information > Size). The default toolbar is a little sparse, so let’s add some more icons (right-click on the toolbar, then Configure Toolbars). At a minimum, we like to have buttons for Up, Refresh and Home. The sidebar, with its bookmarks, is fine, but if you ever have to navigate a particularly complicated directory structure, it’s worth knowing that you can enable the more old-fashioned tree display (F7 or View > Show Panels > Folders).
The current location is shown with a breadcrumbs display, but if you click on it, it reverts to an actual URI of the current directory. This enables you to directly move to a directory by typing or pasting it in, and you can copy the path of the directory by triple-licking on it and right-clicking. You can even add the URL of a network resource such as an FTP site.
You can add command-line integration by opening the Terminal panel that follows the action in the main window (F4 or View > Show panels > Terminal).
Dolphin wouldn’t be our first choice as a dual-pane file manager, but it can work in dual-pane mode, and the feature is quite convenient. Click on the split icon in the main toolbar and a second pane opens up. The same icon then becomes a close icon to dismiss the second pane. It’s handy for copy operations. Some prefer to approach this sort of task with a middle-click on a directory icon, however, which opens up another view of the filesystem in a second tab.
We’re not sure whether we agree with the standard policy of ‘dumbing down’ Dolphin in its default state, but it says a lot for the app that it can work as a simple file manager for casual computer users and yet be scaled up into a power user’s tool with just a few minutes of configuration work.