The file browser component is central to File Workbench. It provides tools to navigate, sort, select, filter and start file operations.

Often one uses two file browsers in a pair next to eachother, where they can serve as source and target for a file operation. They are referred to as partner browsers. (Note: Either of them could equally well be a tree file browser, providing a tree based file browser). The Main Window Layouts page shows how a partnership between two MiniApps can be setup manually.

Keyboard and Mouse

A lot of the functionality is available both through keyboard accelerators and tghe mouse. With the mouse you can do file popup menus, drag and drop (Note: D&D is not yet fully implemented). Quite a bit of work has been made to provide keyboard shortcuts for most operations.

Disks, Folders and Archives

Currently File Workbench can browse disks and archives (zip, tar, gzip, bz). You can copy, view files, create directories in each of these as if they were local folders.

Selecting Files

Files can either be just hilighted or properly selected. When a file is selected, it doesn’t loose this state even if we leave and later re-enter that directory. A hilighted file will become normal as soon as the mouse is clicked somewhere in the window, or when ordinary keys are pressed.

In many file operations, selections spanning multiple directories, that one can add / remove from step by step, are quite useful.

Three hilighted files:	Three selected files

The small check box can be clicked to toggle the selection state. If there is no such column, choose the pulldown menu item Settings_=>_Browser Columns. In the dialog to enable the Select column. Or hit Ctrl-Shift-C.

The most efficient tool to select many files is the file selection dialog. You open it through Num-Plus and Num-Minus.

Another way to toggle the selection state is to hilight the file and then hit the space bar.

When selecting files, you will notice that the selection state of the file changes wherever, it is shown, not just in the current file browser (try by browsing the same directory in two browsers next to eachother).

Sorting files

To sort the files by name, click the Name column header. Similar for Size, permissions, …etc.

To sort by type, click a few pixels to the left of the Name label (left most in the column header).

Function Keys

These keys are used much the same in a big family of file managers, dating back some 20+ years, one of the more wellknown ones being Norton Commander. They are as useful today:

Navigating

The keyboard can be used to navigate no named items, parent, root, forward, backward and bookmark folders:
| Key | Description |
| Backspace | Go to parent directory |
| Enter | Enter directory at cursor (or open file) |
| Shift-Tab | Browse directory / file under cursor in partner browser |
| Alt-Left | Go to previously visited folder (history back) |
| Alt-Right | Go to next visited folder (history next) |
| Ctrl-Back | Go to root directoy of current drive |
| Shift-C,D,… | Go to the drive C:,D:,… (Windows only) |
| Ctrl-B | Open the Bookmarks menu |

You can also type the first few characters of a filename to jump to it.

In the bookmarks menu, you can select a directory, add a new one, or open a dialog to edit the menu.

File Selection

Other Useful Keys