Nautilus: Gnome File Manager, Help Browser, and More

Managing Your Files With Nautilus

As most modern graphic file managers, Nautilus shows the contents of a selected directory using icons to represent files and subdirectories. Double-clicking on any file or directory opens it (for data files, it starts the appropriate application which opens this file). Right-clicking on a file or directory produces a pop-up menu. Using this menu, you can delete or rename the file, view and change file properties or permissions, and more.

Nautilus also provides an easy way to move files between directories. To move move a file from one directory to another, open each directory in a different Nautilus window by selecting New window from the Nautilus File menu. Select the file you need, and drag it from one window into another using the mouse. You can also drag a file or directory to the desktop.

Nautilus provides many more tools to manipulate your files. It is also highly customizable, so you can easily change the way files are displayed (for example, you can choose a custom icon for a given file). For detailed description of all these possibilities, read Nautilus manual.

Reading Documentation With Nautilus

In addition to being a file manager, Nautilus is also a help browser: you can use it to read documentation installed on your system. This includes not only Gnome documentation, but also UNIX-style manual pages (manpages), GNU info pages (documentation format used GNU project utilities), and other types of documentation. To view the list of all documentation installed on your system, click on the Help tab in the left panel of Nautilus.