- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Aug 2-8:04 am by PPC.
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andfree
Hi. I want to borrow a laptop to an old person who usually uses mac. I suppose rox would be more friendly to him, but I haven’t yet found definitive solution to two problems. First, he will have to use also spacefm every time he wants to use an external usb disc. I don’t know any easier way to mount such discs. Second, he uses to keep a lot of files on the desktop, so I suppose it will be hard to him that desktop doesn’t work as a folder in rox. Any ideas, please? Thanks.
rej
SpaceFM is very configurable – easily found options within itself. You can make it very simple and only show the features he might want to be using. The user-manual is very good. Many videos on Youtube.
SpaceFM Doc:
http://ignorantguru.github.io/spacefm/spacefm-manual-en.html
DolphinOracle how-to videos:
SpaceFM:
File Managers: (When video is playing, click Youtube logo at the bottom-right to see full list of D.O.’s File Manager videos)
- This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by rej.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by anticapitalista.
Rox-filer might also be configured to his needs. Take a look at Dolphin’s Rox-filer videos (in the playlist of the 2nd video):
“AntiX 13 – The File Managers Part 1 – ROX”
“Rox-filer – Options, options, and more options”
———————
ROX-Filer User Manual:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/Manual/Manual/Manual.htmlPPC
he uses to keep a lot of files on the desktop, so I suppose it will be hard to him that desktop doesn’t work as a folder in rox. Any ideas, please?
Howdi. I hope my response is still helpfull:
SpaceFM is the more intuitive File Manager, that looks as acts more like Windows “File Manager” (or whatever it’s name is):
1- You can set it as the default FM by going to the antiX menu- Desktops – SpaceFM IceWM (it uses about 20Mb more of idle RAM than Rox IceWM)
2- SpaceFM (and also Rox) allow the user to create and work with files on the desktop! The only “problem” is that the user can’t create, for example, a text file by clicking on the desktop (that only makes the menu appear). To solve that, the user has to create the file he/she wants by opening a File Manager, going to the Desktop folder and then right click and create a new file. The file instantly appears on the computer’s desktop and the user can click it to open/edit it! The user can create a document, for example, with LO Writer and save it to the desktop, no mater if the desktop is being managed by SpaceFM or Rox!
3- automounting external drives and opening in the default FM is usually handy. If SpaceFm is the default FM, then inserted drive opens in SpaceFM. Tell the user to always use the “eject” USB icon, on the toolbar, no matter what desktop you are using (people used to windows usually know how to do that). (Note: if you select SpaceFM JWM desktop, on the desktop’s list, its a breeze to edit JWM config file to show the eject button next to clock, where most users of other OS’s usually find it)
4- there are some changes you can do to SpaceFM so it acts more like a “normal” FM:
-Show Bookmarks: SpaceFM “Bookmarks” menu – tick the “Show Bookmarks” Option. Then navigate to the Desktop folder and to the “Bookmarks” menu again and select “add bookmark”- “Desktop” will show up on the Bookmarks part of the window, on the lower left side of SpaceFM’s window. You can add as many bookmarks as you think the user needs (documents, downloads, music, movies, scanned files, etc)
-Show Thumbnails- if the computer can spare the resources (my 10 y.o. computers do) – SpaceFM View menu- Preferences- Tick the “Show Thumbnails” option.
-Partition names- if the user gets confused because of the names of the partition/drives, use a more modern layout, that presents the “name/label” of the partition first: Right Click the partition list on the top left side of SpaceFM’s window – “Settings”- Display name and set it to ” %l %v %s %m” or any other order you feel the user prefers and click “ok”…I hope this helps your friend
P.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by PPC.
Xecure
As I see it, the best solution is for this person to use SpaceFM, as all things added to the Desktop as links are really stored in the ~/Desktop folder (as this is what your friend expects).
For navigating folders, you can still use ROX (set it as default File Manager while keeping SpaceFM as “Desktop icons” handler), but if you customize SpaceFM to look as “friendly” as ROX, it would be even better.
Following PPC’s guide above will help a lot. I will try to organize PPC’s steps to customize and add a bit to it:
VIEW STYLE – Icon mode
By default in antiX, the view mode is “detailed”, displaying information about the folders (creation date, permission, etc.). A more “user friendly” style is “Icon mode”.
Open any SpaceFM window. Navigate to:
View > Panel 1 View > Style > Icons
This will set the Icon style, so no extra details “clutter” the view.ONLY ONE PANEL – Hide Panelbar
If you are only going to use one panel (Panel 1), then you can hide the panel bar. In the top menu (in any SpaceFM window), go to View and untick PanelBar.BOOKMARKS – Display and save important folders
The Bookmarks pane on the left is hidden by default. On any SpaceFM window you can display it using the corresponding button in the toolbar or in the top menu:
View > Panel 1 View > Bookmarks
And tick it.
Here you can save “quick links” to important folders you want quick access to. The easiest way to add a folder to the Bookmark’s pane is navigating to said folder, And in the top menu:
Bookmarks > New Bookmark
or right-clicking on any empty space in the Folder, and selecting
New > Bookmark
And the bookmark will be added.
To delete a bookmark, right-click it in the left bookmarks pane and select “Remove”.DEVICES PANE – Only see External Drives
If you have many partitions on the computer and don’t want them to show in Devices left pane, you can hide them.
On the top menu in SpaceFM, navigate to:
Devices > Settings > Show
And untick Internal Drives. You can also hide all drives you are not interested to be seen.
If you want to hide all Devices entirely, untick
Devices > Show Devices
or use the corresponding button in the toolbar.ADDING/REMOVING ITEMS IN THE TOOLBAR
You may believe some options are missing in the SpaceFM toolbar compared to ROX filer (like bigger icons or show/hide hidden files). These options do really exist, but they are not displayed on the toolbar.
To add a new button to the toolbar, right-click on the place on the toolbar where you want this new item to be added and navigate to the Add submenu. There, you can choose what new button you want displayed (for example, “Show Hidden”).
To remove buttons form the Toolbar, right-click on the button and click “remove”.STOP OPENING DRIVES IN NEW TABS
If you hate that opening drives opens them in a new tab, you can disable this in:
Devices > Settings > New Tab
untick this option and every time a drive is mounted/opened, it will do so on the same tab.
To hide all tabs altogether (and only use one tab), see the PREFERENCES – INTRERFACE section below.PREFERENCES – Customizing click behavior, Icon size and other things
Open any SpaceFM window. Navigate to
View > PreferencesPreferences – General
Icon size for Desktop/Icon mode -> Modify the Large Icons‘s size.
To modify the icon size in Detailed and Compact mode, change the Small Icons‘s size.
Toolbar Icons changes how the toolbar icons are displayed. Experiment to find the one you like the most.
Double click to open files/folders -> if you are like me, and prefer to double-click to open folders, disable Single click opens files.
If you want to be able to see a preview of your images and videos instead of the default icon, tick the Show Thumbnails option.Preferences – Interface
If you hate tabs, disable the tab bar when only one tab is open by unticking Always show the tab bar.
Double click to open files/folders in DESKTOP -> The same as in SpaceFM File manager but in the desktop; untick Single click opens files if you want double click behavior on the desktop.Etc.
antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.You were much more comprensive than me, Xecure…
… and like Steve Jobs used to say: “one more thing…”: I said that clicking the desktop always invoqued the antiX menu- I was wrong- if using SpaceFm to manage the desktop (Space Icewm desktop), clicking Spacefm View menu- preferences, “Desktop” Tab- untick the option that says something like “Right click shows menu”. Now you can right click any empty space on the desktop and you get a menu that allows to create files, etc, just like in Windows…
Also- if the user intends to access a google drive, I have, I belive, in the tips thread, a short how-to that allows google drive to be mounted as a network drive, with brief instructions how to add Google Drive mount/unmount menu’s in SpaceFm…
You can even dig on-line some (very old) spacefm add-ons (that I never tested) that allow it to mount iso images, rotate pictures, etc…
If you follow the instructions here on this thread, you can get a incredibly functional and modern looking File Manager that looks almost nothing like the default SpaceFm- anyone used to manage files in other Operating Systems can do the same in antiX without breaking a sweat…P.
P.
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