Navigating Your Computer and the Internet

Viewing Your Home Folder

When you first launch Nautilus, you'll see your home folder in the Nautilus window. Three areas of the Nautilus window contain information about your folder:

The location bar, which contains your folder's path name

The sidebar, which contains a folder icon representing your folder

The main panel, where you see icons representing the items in your folder

Figure 3. Location Bar, Sidebar, and Main Panel

Your home folder also appears on your desktop, represented by a house icon. Double-clicking the house icon opens a new Nautilus window with your home folder displayed.

Note about the home folder: Depending on your user-level setting, your home folder may be the default Nautilus home folder, which contains basic information about your computer and pointers to some useful applications, or the home folder defined for you in your Linux settings (normally /home/your_name).

Navigating Your Files and Folders

You can move among your folders by using the navigation buttons in the toolbar and the icons in the Nautilus window.

Try this

Using your home folder as a reference point, navigate your hard disk:

To view your home folder, click the Home button.
To move to the folder that contains your home folder - that is, to move one folder up in the hierarchy - click the Up button.
To return to the home folder, click the Back button.
To view the contents of any folder, double-click its icon (normally a folder icon).
If you think that the contents of a folder have changed while you've been viewing it, click the Refresh button to update the information.
To stop an item from loading, click the Stop button.

The Tree

You can get an overview of all of your computer's files and folders by using the tree. Many people find using the tree to navigate faster than selecting and opening folders.

To see the tree, click the Tree tab at the bottom of the sidebar. Click the tab again to put the tree away.

If you don't see the Tree tab, right-click the sidebar and choose Tree.

The starting point - the top of the tree - is the root directory, represented by a slash (/). Click the disclosure triangle next to the root directory to open or close the list of all your computer's folders and files. The items on your computer are arranged hierarchically. The root directory may list network locations in addition to locations on your computer. (Note: In addition to the root directory identified by a /, there is a directory named root.)

Try this

Open and close a folder in the tree:

To open or close a folder in the tree, click its triangle.
To display the contents of a folder in the main panel, click the folder's name in the tree.

Viewing and Opening Files

Icon and List Views

The first time you launch Nautilus, you see folders and files represented as icons. This is the icon view.

Try this

Look at your files and folders in two views:

To see the contents of a folder as a list, click the View as pop-up menu and choose View as List.
To sort the items displayed in list view, click the column headers (Name, Size, Type, and Date Modified).
To return to icon view, open the View as pop-up menu and choose View as Icons.
To sort the items in icon view, open the View menu, choose Lay Out Items, and then choose a layout option. (For more about the layout options, see Choosing File Layouts.)

Figure 4. The View as Pop-up Menu

Zooming In or Out

You can enlarge or reduce the size of items in either list or icon view and stretch individual icons in icon view.

Try this

Enlarge and reduce icons in either icon view or list view:

To enlarge or reduce all the icons simultaneously, click the plus (+) and minus (-) symbols in the location bar.
To return them to their original size, click the symbol between the - and + symbols (normally a magnifying glass).

Try this

Stretch an icon in icon view:

Click to select the icon you want to stretch.
Open the Edit menu and choose Stretch Icon. A box appears around the icon, with "handles" in each corner.
Click and drag the handles to resize the icon. To cancel the stretch, press the Escape key.
To remove the stretching handles, click away from the icon.

To return an icon to its original size, select the icon; then open the Edit menu and choose Restore Icon's Original Size.

Previewing Files in Icon View

You can preview many files in the Nautilus window just by looking at their icons in the main panel - you don't need to open the files.

Text files: The icons for most text files display the files' first few words or lines of text. If you enlarge a text file's icon by zooming or stretching, you can see more of the text.
Image files: The icons for most image files appear as thumbnails - small versions of the image.
Music files: You can preview common types of music files by positioning the mouse pointer over the icons. Music plays as long as the pointer is over a music file's icon.

Using Nautilus as a Viewer

You can use the Nautilus window to look at a file's contents without opening it for editing in an application. Using a viewer instead of opening an application can save time and memory.

Most text files automatically appear in the Nautilus window when you double-click their icons. However, some files open automatically in their applications. For such files, right-click the icon and choose Open With. Then choose the appropriate viewer.

Note: You can control which viewer or application an individual file automatically opens in. See Choosing Applications to Handle Files.

Here are some of the file types for which the Nautilus window can act as a viewer:

Text	ASCII text, HTML
Image	GIF (without animation), JPEG, PNG, SVG (without interactive features), XPM
Music	AIFF, MP3 (for MP3 files located on your hard disk), RIFF, WAV

Opening Individual Files

You can open files in Nautilus in several ways:

Double-click the file's icon (unless you've changed your preference so that a single click activates items).
Click the file's icon, open the File menu, and choose Open or Open With.
Right-click the file's icon, and choose Open or one of the Open With options.
Click the file's icon, and press the Enter key.

Note: If the application you want to use is not listed when you choose Open With, you can add the application to the list. See Choosing Applications to Handle Files.

Viewing and Playing MP3 Files

Nautilus provides a special set of features to help you enjoy your MP3 files. Using the View as Music option, you can set up a folder of MP3 files as an album containing tracks of your choice and represented by an album cover (custom image) that you specify.

Try this

Use your collection of MP3 files to create a custom music album:

Go to the folder containing your MP3 files.
Click the View as pop-up menu and choose View as Music.

Figure 5. The View as Pop-up Menu

Only the MP3 files in your folder are visible in this view. For each file, you see a listing of titles, artists, bit rates, and playing times.

To begin playing the tracks in your album, click the music player's play button. The selected track begins to play; when it has finished, the next track begins playing automatically. You can also double-click a file to play it.

Figure 6. The Music Player

Play button

Pause button

Stop button

To rewind or fast forward, drag the slider.

If you wish, you can choose a cover image to be displayed for your music folder:

Go to the folder containing your MP3 files.
Click the View as pop-up menu and choose View as Music.
Click the Set Cover Image button in the bottom right corner of the Nautilus window.
Browse to find the graphic you want to use; then select it.
Click OK.

Mounting Floppy Disks and CD-ROMs

If you have a disk in a CD-ROM or floppy drive, you can mount it from the desktop. Do this:

Make sure the disk is in the drive.
Right-click anywhere on the desktop (outside a window) and choose Disks->Floppy or Disks->CD-ROM from the pop-up menu.

Navigating the Internet

You can use Nautilus as a browser for viewing Web pages and FTP sites.

To view a Web page, type its Web address (URL) in the Location bar.

	Try this
	Connect to Eazel's Web site by typing eazel.com in the location bar, and pressing Enter. It's not necessary to type http: or www.

Figure 7. The Location Bar

When you're viewing a Web page, Nautilus gives you additional browser choices in case you want to use a full-featured Web browser. To select a different browser, click one of the buttons in the sidebar.

Figure 8. The Sidebar

Viewing Your Navigation History

When you navigate your computer or the Internet, you may want to return to a page, file, or folder you've previously viewed.

You can view your navigation history in three ways:

Look at the bottom section of the Go menu to see a list of the things you've viewed during the current session.
Click the History tab at the bottom of the sidebar. (To put the History tab away, click the tab again.)
Right-click the Back or Forward button.

You can have Nautilus clear the list of locations you've previously visited. This removes the previous locations listed in the Go menu, the History tab, and under the Back and Forward buttons.

To clear the list of previously visited locations:

Open the Go menu and choose Forget History.

Bookmarking Your Favorite Locations

You will probably discover that you frequently visit certain locations - Web pages, folders on your computer, and favorite photos or text files. You can bookmark these items in Nautilus, so that you can return to them easily.

Creating a Bookmark

To bookmark an item:

Go to the item you want to bookmark. For example, go to http://www.happypenguin.org.
Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Add Bookmark.
To use your bookmark, open the Bookmarks menu and choose your bookmark from the bottom of the menu.

Using the Built-In Bookmarks

Nautilus comes with some built-in bookmarks arranged in folders in the middle part of the Bookmarks menu. They take you to the Web sites of organizations and companies of interest to Linux users.

If your user level is set to Intermediate or Advanced, you can turn off the built-in bookmarks: