How to use the default file manager on Librem 5?

Only that you didn’t search the forum to see quite a few other discussions of the issue that menus don’t work correctly (yet). :wink:

Try switching to the “terminal” keyboard and then use the Menu key on that keyboard.

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No, it takes some fitnesse to drag over files and folders. How I do it is that I hold my finger in place within the directory for half a second, then immediately start dragging in any direction to create a select box.

I recommend Portfolio as an alternative file manager. It’s possible to set it as default as well (but off the top of my head I forgot how and didn’t take notes when I did so previously…)

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Speaking of using the Default File Manager, is anyone else besides me having trouble using the ‘Right Click’ function?

I can right click to bring a menu, but if let go it dissapears. Also, I can’t seem to multi-tap it either.

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Those behaviours do not occur in Crimson.

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Crimson! s that a browser app I can download?

I can’t seem to find it in the app store.

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Crimson is the rolling release distribution of PureOS.

So…will this take time before we will have the ‘right click’ features available with ease?

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Yes, see also:

If you would rather experience the current state of Crimson now, I can provide reflashing instructions for it on the Librem 5.

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I’ll consider that for the time being.

Thanks for sharing

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AFAIK there is no working build available? Phone Calls do not work ???

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Just use the terminal keyboard with the menu-button. If you don’t know how: open your on-screen-keyboard, hit the button with orb symbol and choose the terminal one. There you have a _< button or similar and then you find the menu-button. It simulates the right click correctly. This is the easiest solution until Crimson gets the stable release.

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This is one of the reasons I prefer nemo as my files browser: an actual menu bar with editing functions.

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Good idea, works as expected :slight_smile:

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Well, it ain’t no ‘long press’ but that works. Thanks

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It’s too bad it isn’t opted for mobile friendly use

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Close enough for me, though.

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Yep, that works well, thanks a lot!

Looks like there is one more reason to long for Crimson release.

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Maybe this is weird, but I have been using Librem 5 as a daily driver for a year and I never really had this problem. When I think about it, usually if I was making folders or doing fun things like that, I was either using the terminal app which I use heavily, or else I was opening a PDF of a ticket downloaded from a browser for use with an airplane or train – and for those, I was able to press Downloads and then the PDF in the file manager, which was about all I needed.

So, this might be a personal problem on my part that I should use file management more, but I wanted to put in a good word for the Terminal app as a possible solution to problems. mv Name OtherName renames a file or folder called “Name” to “OtherName”, cd OtherName will browse into a folder called OtherName, the command ls will show what is in the current folder, and mkdir SomeFolder will make a folder called SomeFolder. Maybe I’m just being a cliche nerd, but these work quite well for me.

Also cp A B to make a copy of A named B, or cp -r A B to make a copy of an entire directory A named B, are generally extremely useful. (But, with these and with mv and a few others, there is no undo, so do not make typos.)

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Well sure you don’t have to convince me, but it’s not very user friendly for basic file operations.

When being “forced” to do this, I find the Tab key (filename completion) more handy than usual because typing long filenames using an onscreen keyboard is slow and typo-prone etc.

Another difficulty is that this is a generic problem across all GUI applications and so, while shell commands may substitute for file operations, there will be other GUI applications where no easy equivalent shell command exists.

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