Frequently asked questions

General

Where are my settings stored?

Can I run FWB from a memory stick?

Are there other language versions available?

Is there a Mac port of FWB?

File Browsers

What are these Recursive Selections?

How do I deselect all files in all directories?

How do I create a new folder / file / archive?

How do I edit the current path?

Command Prompts/Shells

How do I restart a command shell?

My Unix shell hangs

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h2. Where are my settings stored?

FileWorkbench keeps the current configuration in a file default.fwb. For a given user it will be stored in a sub-folder of their home directory. It stores the main window layout, preferences, keyboard accelerators and script snippets.

For a user Steve we would get:
* on a Unix system: /home/steve/.FileWorkbench
* on Windows we have something like: C:/Documents and Settings/Steve/Application Data/FileWorkBench

The XML format used to store the settings is quite human readable, but that does not mean editing it is trivial.


h2. Can I run FWB from a USB memory?

yes. At startup, before looking in the users home directory, FileWorkbench will look in the parent directory relative from where it was started. This enables keeping FWB on a flash memory and running your own configuration on a different computers.

Also, since FWB is locally linked, it does not depend on a full install having been made. It will find run-time libraries relative itself.

If you format your USB memory with FAT32, you could actually store both a Windows and a Linux version of FileWorkbench on it.


h2. Are there other language versions available? (German, Chinese, …)

Currently: No. An API for translation is on the planning state. If you want to work with this, contact us (Development page).


h2. Is there a Mac port of FWB?

Not yet. It is mostly a matter of building the sources on a Mac together with the wxWidgets library. More information here.


h2. What are these Recursive Selections?

FileWorkbench allows for working with file selections that spans many directories. The current selection can be added to / removed from step by step. This is sometimes referred to a Recursive selections, or Nested selections or Multi-folder selections.

To select a file in this sense, hilight it and hit the space bar. As you then move the cursor you will notice that it’s selected state stays. To select many files in this way, use the Select/Deselect dialog (accelerator Num-Plus).

Traditional file managers usually allow only to select items in the currently visible folder. On top of that, as you click the mouse, it will just loose its selection state. This can be called a Single folder, one shot selection approach.

Recursive selection is of course a lot more powerful. Say that for a given hard drive, you would like to backup HTML and image files that have been modified within the last 3 months. That’s straight forward to do with recursive selection. Without it… you’d have to manually click through thousands of individual files.

More info here.

h2. How do I deselect all files in all directories?

To really deslect all files, from the file system root and below, use Ctrl-G. To deselect all files in the current directory and below, use Ctrl-D.

Note: Since file systems can be so large, it may take some time to iterate over all of them. Then Ctrl-D is the faster choice.

h2. How do I create a new directory?

Hit F7 and give a name. Ctrl-F7 will create a new (text) file. Shift-F7 creates a new empty archive (Zip/Gz).


h2. How do I edit the curent path?

Single click the browser caption (on the path) and start edit. Using keyboard, press F8.


h2. How do I restart a command shell?

Hit Ctrl-R and select the shell type you want. By default it opens the same type as before.


h2. My Unix shell hangs

This seems to be a lower level problem with Bash. Sometimes, if it is not given a command for a while, it seems the OS will just shut it down and it will not respond anymore. Restarting the shell is the workaround.

If someone has a clue why this happens and a fix, …help is welcome.