File Manager View Properties (in details columns)

English Applications
1

Hi All! Am newbie in openSUSE as still in transition from windows OS. Can anyone help to advise how to display file properties (details other than size,date,permissions,owner,group,type) using file manager applications similar to Dolphin, Konquerer, etc. I have heaps of files ported from windows environment where I used to store descriptive subjects in one of the file properties field. In windows environment, I would have used file manager such as explorer to display the selected file properties field when searching for particular file before opening it.

I know openoffice supports the file properties feature but unfortunately it would appear Linux OS currently does not have a file manager application ready to display these information. :frowning:

2

Can anyone help to advise how to display file properties (details other than size,date,permissions,owner,group,type) using file manager applications similar to Dolphin, Konquerer, etc.

What more info do you want?
Do you mean to show detailed long file names

eg: a file name like:

grub-tutorial A detailed look at booting with grub and keeping other OS alive at the same time.txt

3

rickliaw wrote:
> Hi All! Am newbie in openSUSE

you have posted to a forum designed and used to make comments and
suggestions about these fora themselves…

that is, this is not a help forum…in the future please direct your
technical help needed question to the best of several listed at
http://forums.opensuse.org/

and if you have a minute:

i ask all of the below because several (many) others have also posted
technical help questions to this forum and i’m trying to figure out
why so that i’ll know how to make it easier for folks to post to the
more correct forum…

for example, the question you posted is probably best serviced by the
helpers in our community if it is placed in the Applications forum
<http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/>

that forum is listed quite early (fourth of many many) on the opening
page of the forums, and as a matter of personal interest i wonder how
you accidentally posted to this “Forums Comments/Suggestions” which
appears so far down on the page i get tired of scrolling before i get
to it…

so, i wonder if you accessed this forum directly from a link on some
blog, wiki or anywhere other than on this page:
http://forums.opensuse.org/

and, trying to think of a better way to describe the several forums in
an effort to lead new folks to the best place for their technical
questions: can help me rewrite the descriptions of:

under the heading of “openSUSE Help”

“Applications - Questions about desktops (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc.),
software applications (configuration, usage, bugs, documentation)”

and under the heading of “Forums Feedback”

“Forums Comments/Suggestions - Comments and/or suggestions about the
openSUSE forums”

THANKS in advance, for your feedback!

–
palladium

4

I bump this over to applications
That’s where it will be DD

We don’t like moving stuff on you nntp guys;)

5

Under windows (file) explorer, you could view files listing in detail columns mode where the columns to be listed are selectable from the fields under file properties. Using this method, you could easily identify the subject of each file without actually opening it (which could be sluggish depending on network performance).

6

My apologies for selecting the incorrect forum to post the question as it was my first posting. Thanks for highlighting it to me.

7

In dolphin you can change the view properties above and beyond anything windows can offer, you just need to look.

I just marked a few things quickly here
http://thumbnails10.imagebam.com/7025/a7abf470241027.gif](http://www.imagebam.com/image/a7abf470241027)

8

In fact Unix/Linux does not have much file properties in its file system. Only the name, owner/group, access bits and some time stamps and normal-file/directory/symlink.

The type (like JPEG graphics, MP3 sound, etc.) shown by several file managers you mention is found doing an intelligent guess by looking in the files themselves. Often so called Magic Numbers reveal what the file is about. Errors are possible. But the Type is imho nearest to what you mean.

As I do know near to nothing about MS Windows I can not compare with it, but I admit that e.g. VAX-VMS has much more to offer here.
Maybe youi could explain which properties you are talking about so that people who know something about Linux, but nothing about MS can try to help you.

9

Thanks to hcw for enlightening me about the unix based OS.

I will attempt to describe the intended use of the file properties I was referring to.

When you create any [openoffice?] file (e.g. using OpenOffice), under menu File-Properties and tab “Description”, you will be able to enter details for several fields such as “Title”, “Subject”, etc. Thus, it would be “convenient” (for lack of a better word) to list files to show selected fields of the “file properties” before opening it.

In my application, my filenames are structured to follow internal references which consists of abbreviated codes and serial numbers. Thus, listing these files with descriptive information does help in identifying files before opening them.

So my question is: Is there any available File Manager application in openSUSE which provide this feature ?

10

Sorry cat4926, that didnt provide the result I was looking for. But, thanks for trying to help.

11

I now understand better what you mean (I hope :wink: ).

The properties you mean are properties OpenOffice puts in the file.They are not specific to the Operating System it is just data in the file. Now I can imagine a file manager that, when it thinks: “Hey that is an OpenOffice file (or better an Open Document file)”, it then can search inside that file and show you those properties. I am not aware of any file manager doing this now. But as the OpenDocument standard grows in significance I can see that this might be programmed in the future. You could of course trying to propagate this at whish lists, etc.

The more use of standard formats will be made, the more change that all types of related software will be adapted.

BTW It might be that MS Windows does this for it own brand of office files, but I doubt it does this for Open Document ones.

12

I remember that konqueror did show the metadata for files in opensuse
versions 10.x at least with kde 3.5, it was handy to move the mouse over a
file (for example a mp3 or a movie) and it showed a large tooltip with
metainfo about the file, resolution, video codec, length …

I do not remeber if that worked for office documents. Unfortuneatelly it
does not behave the same way by default now in kde4 and I have no clue what
to set that the metadata from the file is automatically shown in konqueror
or dolphin (the info window on the right side contains nearly nothing).

13

Yes, that is one of those sad losses of functionality in going from KDE 3.5 to the “much better” KDE 4.

14

Like this.
http://thumbnails26.imagebam.com/7027/49436570268884.gif](http://www.imagebam.com/image/49436570268884)

15

Yes, there is some, but earlier (Konqui in KDE 3.5) you got this:
. on mouse over (no click);
. on the spot where you where looking and not on the other side of the window;
. when not used it took no place and this is a big panel most of the time showing nothing usefull (it took me a lot of time to discover where it was for!);

The amount of info may vary between files types. I leave it to martin_helm to point out where it is less then before. I only know I missed things, but did not store those frustrating moments in my mind. I have allready frustrations enough with KDE 4.

Edit: It does work on hover over, but I am so used to this happening before my very eyes that I do not see it happening in the other panel.

16

> Yes, that is one of those sad losses of functionality in going from KDE
> 3.5 to the “much better” KDE 4.

:frowning:

Sad to read this . It is not an essential feature for me but was really
useful, I simply noticed that it disappeared and did not spend much time to
look for it - but I hoped it is simply something hidden now and I am to
stupid to find it and not completely discarded.

I understood that this is something rickliaw is looking for. The windows
explorer has the feature to show this info by the right click menu. To show
not only the file properties but also the metadata for the files it can
recognize.

17

ah! it sounds like you want to preview the internal properties of
OpenOffice files before opening

apparently like you can in Windows. WAIT, are you saying you can do
that in Windows when looking at

  1. ANY file?
  2. or just MS_Office files?
  3. or both MS_Office and OpenOffice files?

if we have a tool to do that, i do not know about it…but, i would
not be surprised to learn that we have it, somewhere for OpenOffice…

i wonder, are you using an OpenOffice file browser, or what ??

OKAY! i figured it MUST be an OpenOffice tool because i can’t imagine
MS would actually make it easy to use OO, so i just looked in chapter
three of “File Management in OpenOffice.org” a pdf found at
http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/0103GS-FileManagement.pdf
and see the dialog on page three does NOT allow one to (in the file
open dialog) single click on a file and read its internal comments!

so, where DO you see that, when using windows? maybe your OO is newer
than the one associated with that pdf file…

i’d say any hacker worth his salt should be able to make what you need
in no time at all! :wink:

–
palladium

18

The standard windows explorer reads the metadata tags from even plain old
deprecated oo 1.1 sxw files when you move the mouse over it and shows a tool
tip with at least author and title (the title from the meta data not the
file name) of the document (I just checked it on the win xp I have in a
vmware on my business laptop).

With right click properties there opens a dialog where you can not only see
the file properties (user rights, size …) but also the author, title,
keywords from the meta data in the file (even for oo documents).

Unfortunately I do not know how to program a dolphin plug-in, but this
brings me now to the point to look at it (maybe next weekend) to find this
out.

The bad thing is such things existed already in the old kde and are now
gone.

19

rickliaw wrote:
> My apologies for selecting the incorrect forum to post the question as
> it was my first posting. Thanks for highlighting it to me.

no apology required…but, still i wonder how it happened that you
scrolled so far down the page before deciding which forum to post
to…OR (and, i suspect this may well be the problem) did you click
on a link somewhere other than the forums first page?

i really am looking for a solution to a far too often recurring
‘problem’ of posting to the forum’s comments/suggestions forum…

can you help me? (while we help you?)

–
palladium

20

Martin Helm wrote:
> The bad thing is such things existed already in the old kde and are now
> gone.

you are correct…i had just never noticed it before…i know you
are right because with my Konqueror 3.5.7 running in KDE3.5.7 shows
ALL of the info inside the OO files! wow!!

too bad progress (aka KDE4) took that away…maybe they have it back
in the feature set a day or two before they spring KDE5.0 on us, and
we all wait some more!!

–
palladium