The K Desktop Environment

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8. The filemanager

8.1 How do I use KFM as web browser with a proxy?

KFM can be used via HTTP and FTP proxies. You can set the proxy server with KFM's menu entry Options|Configure Browser|Proxy.

Please make sure to save the changed settings with Options|Save settings to make the proxy setting persistent.

8.2 How can I change the appearance of a directory in KFM?

When displaying a directory, KFM looks for a hidden file

.directory

inside the directory. You can create such a file to modify the way in which the directory is displayed. The file is simply a kdelnk file. For example:

# KDE Config File
[KDE Desktop Entry]
Name=Settings
Name[de]=Einstellungen
Name[pl]=Ustawienia
MiniIcon=kcontrol.xpm
SortOrder=Desktop,Input_Devices,KWM,Network,Information,Sound
Icon=kcontrol.xpm

is the file used to describe the Settings directory. It changes the icon used to display the directory, it sets the (displayed) name of the directory according to the national language and fixes the order in which the subdirectories are displayed.

For the directories that build up the K^ menu, you can also use kmenuedit to change the appearance.

8.3 How can I do non-anonymous FTP transfers with KFM?

Normally, if you enter an URL like:

ftp://ftp.somehost.com

KFM attempts an anonymous login to the FTP server. If you want to login as a certain user, enter an URL like:

ftp://username@ftp.somehost.com

KFM will then ask for your password and connect to the server.

8.4 "KFM cannot connect to 'localhost'", what is going wrong?

In most cases, this is because of an incorrectly configured loopback route on your system.

How to check for problems

Check if this command returns similar output:

# ping localhost

PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.3 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.2 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.2 ms 
...

If it doesn't, your loopback interface or route is not properly configured.

The output of the

/sbin/route 

command should contain lines like the following:

Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags MSS    Window Use Ifac
loopback        *               255.0.0.0       U     3584   0       13 lo

The important fields are the Destination, Gateway, Genmask and Iface. This means that the system is properly configured to route all loopback traffic through the loopback interface (lo).

The output of the

/sbin/ifconfig

command should contain the following lines:

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Bcast:127.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP BROADCAST LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:3584  Metric:1

This means that the loopback interface is up and running.

Your /etc/hosts file should contain the following line:

127.0.0.1       localhost

This ensures that the "localhost" hostname is associated with your system's loopback address (127.0.0.1).

Fixing these problems

/sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
/sbin/route add -net 127.0.0.0

Both these commands should, on a healthy system, be executed for you at the bootup of your computer. If this isn't happening, check your network startup files in /etc/rc.d.

If it STILL doesn't work

If none of these work, please send a full report to the KDE buglist Don't forget to mention that you have checked all these things.

8.5 What are %i and %m in the Execute line?

They are used by all kde-applications (since they are implemented in KApplication and all good kde-programs create a KApplication object before they even look at the command line arguments).

A standard line for a KDE application looks like this:

foo .....    %i %m -caption \"%c\"

Pretty confusing, but it has been designed in that way to be able to integrate legacy, non-KDE applications as smoothly as possible.

KFM when executing the line from above will extend the command to

foo -icon something.xpm -miniicon something_mini.xpm -caption \"The Foo\"

Both the icon and the mini-icon as well as "The Foo" are properties defined in the kdelnk file. If the icons are not defined, they simply default to the executable name "foo".

This way a user can change these things in the menu-editor for his or her applications. "-caption" is important, because no user will accept that the menu item "Editor" starts something called "kedit-0.9pl4-build47". Instead, he expects a window called "Editor". Furthermore these names are localized, i.e. an American launches "CD-Player" and gets a window called "CD-Player" while a German launches "CD Spieler" and gets a window called "CD-Spieler".

8.6 How do I specify KFM's startup directory?

Right-click on the KFM icon and choose Properties. Under the Execute tab you'd probably find something like 'kfmclient folder %u file:/root'; just change 'root' to wherever you'd like KFM to start.

8.7 How do I import Netscape bookmarks?

Take a look at the "full" list of KDE apps (not just those in the distribution) at http://www.kde.org/applications.html. Under "network", you will find knsbookmark, the tool you need.

8.8 Is there a "Save As..." function in KFM?

There's something close --- "View-->View Document Source" opens KEdit with the source code, which you can then save. This works well for text/html files, but not for graphics.

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