I have used Windows Explorer for too many years and I am having a great deal of trouble navigating in Dolphin.
When I page through files and folders, it seems that a lot of them are “missing” even though I know that they are not.
Is there any sort of “search” function that would help me locate important things?
I see a “Search for” prominently displayed on the left side, but it never seems to find files or folders that I send it looking for.
You maybe not seeing things because they are hidden any file (or folder {all thing in Unix are files}) that starts with a period is not normally shown ie hidden. You View-show hidden may help. Also you may want to configure your tool bar to have a show hidden button. You will find the Dolphin totally blows away Exploder. You just need to configure it to your liking. Setting-configure tool bar. If you click just under the tool bar you will toggle nav edit function. In Edit-Find you get a search function and that will use the full search of content as well as file names if you have left that turned on. (the Indexing can initially take a bunch of time). You can also place the Find icon on the tool bar as well as loads and loads of other stuff.
As shipped it is pretty bland the idea is to allow you to make it like you want and like to work not force any pattern on you. Note that is not totally successful since there are just so many options you can allow for but it really is quite malleable
You failed to tell whch version of openSUSE you use.
You failed to tell which desktop environment (because this is about Dolphin, KDE is the most likely, but that is not 100%, Dolphin can be used in other DEs also).
And please, can you be more specific. It might not be easy (things never are when it is about GUI programs), but this very vague. You could e.g. prove that a file exists by posting here an
ls -l <thefilename>
of it and then maybe post a screenshot were we can see that Dolphin fails to show it.
Sorry, I am using 13.2 with KDE and Plasma. This is a fresh clean install and I have accepted all the updates that it offered to me.
I see that “Search for > Images” presents every image I have in alphabetical order, which is great, as long as I know the correct name. However, if I know part of the name, particularly if it is not the first few characters, the search is very cumbersome.
Let me ask a single specific question.
I use Dropbox quite a bit. In Windows, Dropbox appears as an ordinary folder in Documents.
In openSUSE, using Dolphin, I can find a Dropbox folder, and the files in it. But in the terminal, “ls -l filename” does not locate the file even when I specify the entire path to it and type in the full name, spelled correctly. That is, it says that it “cannot access” it, even when the drive is mounted and open.
It seems as if certain files are able to “hide in plain sight” somehow.
Well Drop box is one of those proprietary things that may not keep up the fast pass of Linux development. I’d point my questions at them. If this was an upgrade did you reinstall these proprietary things don’t auto upgrade like the rest of system. Last I used it Dropbox showed up in the system tray. If you are not making the connection you won’t see any files.
I still have a Dropbox folder from 2 versions back but it on;y has a welcome pdf in it because I have not bothered adding Dropbox.
IMHO that is somethong quite different from the first description you gave. As I have no idea what Windows does do in any situation and as I am not a Dropbox user either, I will quit from this thread.
I am sorry.
I will try not to bother the forum with basic general questions any more, if I can avoid it.
I am back again.
You need not be sorry because you asked a basic general question. It is perfectly OK to ask those questions.
But problems of understanding will arrive if you do not provide detalled information about what you do, what you get and what you thought you would get. These three (3) items in general must be in a good problem description.
And your first post is realy not much more then the infamous: “It does not work”.
Allways keep in mind that these forums are only a lousy way to communicate compared with sitting face to face before your computer with a beer. We can not see what you do, not see what you see, not even have an idea about what you want, when you do not explain it all. That results in tedious work before you compose your question, but that is how it is.
Also, many people do many things different then other people. Never assume that your audience does do the same things the same way as you. Even if you think there is but one logical way to do things, that might not be the case.
In short, there are no dumb questions, but there are dumb ways to ask questions.
A nice article, that is not completely applicable to your case and/or our forums, but nevertheless tries to show how to ask questions: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way