haiku/docs/userguide/en/tracker.html
2012-11-15 22:36:54 +01:00

209 lines
20 KiB
HTML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">
<head>
<!--
*
* Copyright 2008-2011, Haiku. All rights reserved.
* Distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
*
* Authors:
* Humdinger <humdingerb@gmail.com>
*
-->
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<meta name="robots" content="all" />
<title>Tracker</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../Haiku-doc.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="banner">
<div><span>User guide</span></div>
</div>
<div class="nav">
<div class="inner">
<ul class="lang-menu">
<li class="now"><img src="../images/flags/gb.png" alt="" /> English</li>
<li><a href="../fr/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/fr.png" alt="" />Français</a></li>
<li><a href="../de/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/de.png" alt="" />Deutsch</a></li>
<li><a href="../it/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/it.png" alt="" />Italiano</a></li>
<li><a href="../ru/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/ru.png" alt="" />Русский</a></li>
<li><a href="../es/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/es.png" alt="" />Español</a></li>
<li><a href="../sv_SE/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/sv_SE.png" alt="" />Svenska</a></li>
<li><a href="../jp/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/jp.png" alt="" />日本語</a></li>
<li><a href="../uk/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/uk.png" alt="" />Українська</a></li>
<li><a href="../zh_CN/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/zh_CN.png" alt="" /> 中文 [中文]</a></li>
<li><a href="../pt_PT/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/pt_PT.png" alt="" />Português</a></li>
<li><a href="../fi/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/fi.png" alt="" />Suomi</a></li>
<li><a href="../sk/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/sk.png" alt="" />Slovenčina</a></li>
<li><a href="../hu/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/hu.png" alt="" />Magyar</a></li>
<li><a href="../pt_BR/tracker.html"><img src="../images/flags/pt_BR.png" alt="" />Português (Brazil)</a></li>
</ul>
<span>
« <a href="teammonitor.html">Team Monitor</a>
:: <a href="contents.html" class="uplink">Contents</a>
:: <a href="tracker-add-ons.html">Tracker Add-Ons</a> »
</span></div>
</div>
<div id="content">
<div>
<table class="index" id="index" summary="index">
<tr class="heading"><td>Index</td></tr>
<tr class="index"><td>
<a href="#mounting-volumes">Mounting volumes</a><br />
<a href="#navigating">Navigating</a><br />
<a href="#appearance">Appearance</a><br />
<a href="#tracker-preferences">Tracker preferences</a><br />
<a href="#working-with-files">Working with files</a><br />
<a href="#transaction-status">Transaction status</a>
</td></tr>
</table>
<h1>Tracker</h1>
<p>The Tracker is the graphical interface to all your files. It lets you create new files and folders or find, launch or rename as well as copy or delete existing ones.</p>
<p>Being an application like any other (the Desktop with its icons is really just a fullscreen window in the background), Tracker appears with its windows in the Deskbar and can be quit and restarted. The easiest way to quit and restart a crashed or frozen Tracker (or a wayward Deskbar) is to call the <a href="teammonitor.html">Team Monitor</a>.</p>
<h2>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="mounting-volumes" name="mounting-volumes">Mounting Volumes</a></h2>
<p>In order to access a harddisk, CD, USB stick etc., you first have to mount the volume, that is, let the system know it's there. This is done with a right-click on the Desktop or an already mounted volume (like the boot disk) and choosing the volume from the <span class="menu">Mount</span> submenu. You find the same <span class="menu">Mount</span> menu in the Deskbar.</p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/mount-settings.png" alt="drill-down.png" />
<p>There are also <span class="menu">Settings</span> so you don't have to mount everything manually after every bootup.<br />
The above settings will automatically mount any storage device you connect/insert and also mount all disks on bootup that were mounted previously.</p>
<div class="box-warning">Before you disconnect e.g. a harddrive or USB stick, make sure you have successfully unmounted the volume. This guarantees that all data transfer has finished. Otherwise you may lose data or corrupt the disk!</div>
<h2>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="navigating" name="navigating">Navigating</a></h2>
<p>By default, when you double-click a folder, Tracker opens a new window while leaving the parent window open. This can quickly lead to an overcrowded desktop.<br />
You can prevent that by holding down the <span class="key">OPT</span> key, which automatically closes the parent window.<br />
This is also true for keyboard navigation. For more on that, see topic <a href="keyboard-shortcuts.html">Shortcuts and key combinations</a>.</p>
<p>Moving through your folders is one of Trackers main purposes, just like the file managers on other platforms. Haiku's Tracker has some unique features that will help you doing that efficiently.</p>
<h3>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a><a id="drill-down" name="drill-down">Drilling down the submenus</a></h3>
<p>Instead of double-clicking your way down folder after folder, there's a better way to drill down:</p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/drill-down.png" alt="drill-down.png" />
<!-- screenshot needs updating to show /boot/system/documentation -->
<p>Right-click onto a folder, and at the top of the usual context menu you'll find a submenu of the current folder that let's you navigate down a level. Just move down the hierarchy until you find the file or folder you're looking for and click on it to open it. The above shows the contents of the folder <span class="path">/boot/home/config/</span>.<br />
If you do the above while dragging a file with you, it will be moved to where you eventually drop it.</p>
<p>A similar method can be used from any Tracker window:</p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/window-drill-down.png" alt="window-drill-down.png" />
<p>Click on the area in the lower left, where the number of items is listed, and you'll get submenus for every level above your current location. From there you can drill down through the folders as usual.</p>
<p>Note, that the Desktop is always the topmost level as that is where Tracker shows mounted volumes. So, if you want to go to another disk, you first have to navigate to the top (Desktop) and cross over to your other disk from there.</p><br />
<p>You'll get the same submenu-navigating when you drag a file over a folder. After a short while of hovering, a submenu pops up and you can drill down to your destination. If you initiated the drag with the right mousebutton, you can choose between copying, moving or linking the file when you release the mouse.</p>
<h3>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="type-ahead" name="type-ahead">Jumping to files with type-ahead</a></h3>
<p>You may be familiar with the concept from file managers of other operating systems: typing the first few letters of a filename will jump to the first file matching these starting characters. Haiku took the idea a step further. If there isn't a file starting with those letters it will jump to the first file including the string anywhere in its name. And if there's nothing with the string in its filename, the attributes are searched next.</p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/window-type-ahead.png" alt="window-type-ahead.png" />
<p>In the above example, there are many files starting with "Haiku logo", rendering simpler approaches to typing ahead quite useless. In Haiku however, typing "web" jumps right to its first occurence in "Haiku logo - website". The characters you enter appear in the bottom left corner where you normally find the item count of all files in the folder. A second after entering a character, the display jumps back to normal and you're ready for a new type ahead search.</p>
<h3>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="type-ahead-filter" name="type-ahead-filter">Type-ahead filtering</a></h3>
<p>Instead of jumping to a file while typing, there's also the option to filter out all files not matching your type-ahead string. This can improve clarity dramatically, especially when dealing with crowded folders. By using <span class="key">SHIFT</span> <span class="key">SPACE</span> as delimiter, you can even filter on multiple strings.<br />
Contrary to type-ahead jumping, the filtering will stick until you press <span class="key">ESC</span> or close the window (or leave the folder if you're using Single Window Navigation).<br />
This type-ahead filtering is set in the <a href="#tracker-preferences.html">Tracker preferences</a>.</p>
<h2>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="appearance" name="appearance">Appearance</a></h2>
<img src="images/tracker-images/window-menu.png" alt="window-menu.png" />
<p>Tracker windows offer three different viewing modes from the <span class="menu">Window</span> menu:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><span class="menu">Icon view</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">1</span>) - Big icons, you can change the size from the submenu or in/decrease their size with <span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">+</span>/<span class="key">-</span>.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Mini icon view</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">2</span>) - Small icons.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">List view</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">3</span>) - A detailed list of your files enabling you to show/hide available <i>attributes</i>. (See topic <a href="attributes.html">Attributes</a>.)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The <span class="menu">Window</span> menu offers a number of other functions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><span class="menu">Resize to fit</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">Y</span>) - Resizes the window to its ideal size.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Arrange by...</span> - Only available in Icon or Mini icon view, a submenu allows to set the sorting order to various properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><span class="menu">Name</span>, <span class="menu">Real name</span>, <span class="menu">Size</span>, <span class="menu">Modified</span>, <span class="menu">Created</span>, <span class="menu">Kind</span>, <span class="menu">Location</span>, <span class="menu">Permissions</span></p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Reverse order</span> - Inverts the sorting order</p></li>
<li _translation_id="4339"><p><span class="menu">Clean up</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">K</span>) - Aligns all icons to an invisible grid. Hold down <span class="key">SHIFT</span> and the menu becomes <span class="menu">Clean up all</span> which additionally sorts all icons according to the above selected criterium.</p></li>
</ul></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Select...</span> (<span class="key">SHIFT</span> <span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">A</span>) - Select files according to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression" class="external free" title="Wikipedia: Regular expression">regular expression</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Close</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">W</span>) - Closes the window. Hold down <span class="key">SHIFT</span> and the menu becomes <span class="menu">Close all</span> which closes every Tracker window.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Close all in workspace</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">Q</span>) - Closes every Tracker window in the current workspace. A useful shortcut if you forgot to hold the <span class="key">OPT</span> key while clicking through folders and all those still open Tracker windows clutter your workspace.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Sometimes you just want to rearrange a few icons without doing a complete <span class="menu">Clean up</span> (<span class="key">ALT</span> <span class="key">K</span>). In that case, you select these icons and start to drag them to their new location. Before you drop them there, keep <span class="key">ALT</span> pressed. This will align the icons to the invisible grid.</p>
<p>The rest of the functions are pretty self-explanatory, leaving the Tracker preferences.</p>
<h3>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="tracker-preferences" name="tracker-preferences">Tracker preferences</a></h3>
<p><span class="menu">Window | Preferences...</span> opens a panel that offers a number of settings that, where not obvious, should become clear once tried out. Since all settings are applied live, you'll immediately see the changes.
<br />So, in short, the not so obvious settings:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><span class="menu">Desktop</span> - Decide if all mounted disks appear directly on the Desktop or in a window after clicking a single Disk icon sitting on the Desktop.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Windows</span> - You can set <span class="menu">Single window navigation</span>, i.e. a double-clicked folder doesn't open in its own window, but inside the already open window instead, replacing the view of it's parent folder. This is not the same as clicking while holding the <span class="key">OPT</span> key, as described above, because you'll lose the per window saved position and size.
<br /><br /></p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/tracker-preferences-navigator.png" alt="tracker-preferences-navigator.png" />
<p>Before you switch Tracker to Single Window Navigation mode, because that may feel more familiar to you, we recommend giving the menu based browsing a try first, as that may actually work much faster for you after getting used to. On the other hand, single window browsing offers a <i>Navigator</i> where you can enter or copy &amp; paste a path name and use back, forward and up buttons.</p>
<p>Activating <span class="menu">Type-ahead filtering</span> will filter the contents of a Tracker window while you type to only display the files matching your string in their name or any currently displayed attribute. See <a href="#type-ahead-filter">above</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Trash</span> - Set the behavior when deleting a file.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Volume icons</span> - Set the color of an optional indicator of free space that's shown besides a disk's icon.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This panel, by the way, is also available as <span class="app">Tracker</span> from Deskbar's <span class="menu">Preferences</span>.</p>
<h2>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="working-with-files" name="working-with-files">Working with files</a></h2>
<p>When invoked on a selected file, most of the <span class="menu">File</span> menu commands are also offered in the context menu by right-clicking that file.</p>
<p>As usual the commands are pretty clear.</p>
<ul>
<li><p><span class="menu">Find...</span> - Find a file or folder. See topic <a href="queries.html">Query</a> for more info.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">New</span> - Create a new folder or any other file based on a <i>template</i>.
<br /><br /></p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/new-menu.png" alt="new-menu.png" />
<p>Choosing <span class="menu">Edit templates...</span> opens the folder <span class="path">/boot/home/config/settings/Tracker/Tracker New Templates</span>. Creating a file in that folder will offer its filetype with the file's name and other attributes as template in the <span class="menu">New</span> menu. Here, there's a file "Text" with the filetype <tt>text/plain</tt>. See topic <a href="filetypes.html">Filetypes</a> for more info.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Open with...</span> - A submenu offers all applications that can handle this filetype.
<br /><br /></p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/open-with.png" alt="open-with.png" />
<p>The preferred application that would open the file when double-clicked, is checkmarked. This submenu lists first those applications that can handle the exact filetype, in this case it's a text file, the type <tt>text/plain</tt>. Next come all applications that can handle that supertype in general, here <tt>text/*</tt>. Last in the list are those that can deal with any file. If you don't click on an app in the submenu, but on the <span class="menu">Open with...</span> entry instead, a panel opens:</p>
<br /><br />
<img src="images/tracker-images/open-with-preferred.png" alt="open-with-preferred" />
<p>Here you'll again find the programs that were listed in the submenu. By selecting one and clicking the <span class="button">Open and make preferred</span> button, you changed the preferred application for every file of that filetype, here <tt>text/plain</tt>.</p></li>
<li><span class="menu">Get info</span>
<br /><br />
<img src="images/tracker-images/get-info.png" alt="get-info" />
<p>The panel presents info on the selected file and lets you set the default application and, after you expanded that part of the panel, permissions and owner. Clicking on the path will open it in a Tracker window.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Edit name</span>, <span class="menu">Duplicate</span> and <span class="menu">Move to trash</span> - lets you rename or duplicate a file or put the selected file(s) to the trash.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Move to</span>, <span class="menu">Copy to</span> and <span class="menu">Create link</span> - lets you move, copy or link the selected file(s) using the submenu navigating method. Holding <span class="key">SHIFT</span> while invoking the menu offers the option to create a relative link.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Cut</span>, <span class="menu">Copy</span> and <span class="menu">Paste</span> - lets you cut, copy and paste files using the clipboard. By holding <span class="key">SHIFT</span> while invoking the menu you can <span class="menu">Copy/Cut more</span> files, maybe from another folder that you can paste somewhere else later. Also, while holding <span class="key">SHIFT</span> you can paste the copied files in the clipboard as links.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Identify</span> - will sniff out and set the type of files if they didn't have one before, e.g. if you transferred a file with <span class="cli">wget</span> which doesn't set a filetype itself. Holding <span class="key">SHIFT</span> while invoking the menu changes the item to <span class="menu">Force identify</span> which identifies the filetype and corrects it if it was false before.</p></li>
<li><p><span class="menu">Add-Ons</span> - offers you every generic Tracker add-on and those that can handle the selected file(s). See topic <a href="tracker-add-ons.html">Tracker Add-ons</a> for more information.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/up.png" style="border:none;float:right" alt="index" /></a>
<a id="transaction-status" name="transaction-status">Transaction status</a></h2>
<p>When you copy, move or delete files, Tracker shows its progress with a status window. If you initiate more than one transaction, each job gets its own status display.</p>
<img src="images/tracker-images/transaction-status.png" alt="transaction-status.png" />
<p>To the right are two buttons to pause or stop a transaction entirely. Sometimes it can be useful to temporarily pause a large transaction. For example, you may need to quickly launch a large application. Copying large amounts of data chokes your harddisk's IO bandwidth and thus delays your workflow.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="nav">
<div class="inner"><span>
« <a href="teammonitor.html">Team Monitor</a>
:: <a href="contents.html" class="uplink">Contents</a>
:: <a href="tracker-add-ons.html">Tracker Add-Ons</a> »
</span></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>