Configuring DolphinTable of Contents
Dolphin distinguishes two different kinds of settings:
Settings which affect the general behavior of Dolphin. These can be configured using the Preferences Dialog.
Settings which determine how the contents of a folder are displayed in Dolphin. These settings are called View Properties and can be controlled with toolbar buttons, via the menu, and with the View Properties Dialog. In the default configuration, the view properties are remembered for each folder, but Dolphin can also be configured to use common view properties for all folders in the “General” section of the settings.
The Preferences Dialog is opened via → in the menu in Dolphin's main window. The settings are divided into several groups which can be accessed by clicking the corresponding icon on the left of the dialog.
This group contains settings which control the appearance of Dolphin on startup.
Startup Settings in Dolphin's Preferences Dialog.
The Home Folder is the folder which is opened on startup. The location of the folder can be entered directly or chosen in a dialog which can be opened by clicking the button showing a “folder” icon. Moreover, the current location or the default location (which is the user's home folder) can be used as the Home Folder by clicking the corresponding button.
Split View Mode controls if the Dolphin view is split on startup or not.
Editable location bar controls if the location bar is in editable mode on startup. The bread crumb mode of the location bar is used otherwise. See the section about the location bar for details about the two modes.
If Show full path inside location bar is enabled, the full path of the current location is shown in the bread crumb mode of the location bar. Otherwise, a shortened version of the path is shown if it begins with the path of one of the places in the Places panel.
Show filter bar controls if the filter bar is shown on startup or not. See the section on the filter bar for details.
This group contains settings which control the behavior of Dolphin's view modes. The three view modes (Icons, Compact, and Details) are accessible via the tab bar on top.
View Modes Settings in Dolphin's Preferences Dialog.
All three view modes have some common settings:
Sliders which control the size of the icons. The Default or Preview sizes are used if previews are disabled or enabled, respectively. Note that the icon size can be changed easily with the zoom slider in the status bar if the corresponding option is enabled in the “General” section of the settings.
A setting for the font used in the view mode: either the system font or a custom font can be chosen.
The other settings in the Text section which apply to only one of the view modes are discussed below.
Width controls the minimum width that is reserved for the text of a file item.
Maximum lines means maximum number of text lines below the icon.
This group contains settings which control how navigation in the folder structure and in archives works.
Navigation Settings in Dolphin's Preferences Dialog.
Dolphin can be configured to open items with a single mouse click (Single-click to open files and folders) or a double mouse click (Double-click to open files and folders). In the latter case, a single mouse click will select the file or folder.
Archives will be opened inside Dolphin, and not in an external application, if Open Archives as folder is enabled.
If Open folders during drag operations is enabled, dragging an item with the mouse and hovering a folder with it for a short time will open that folder. This permits to move or copy items quickly to folders which are several levels deeper in the folder hierarchy.
This group offers a selection of services that can be shown in the submenu of Dolphin's context menu which appears when clicking a file or folder with the mouse button.
Services Settings in Dolphin's Preferences Dialog.
Using the you can fetch additional service menu.
If you have installed Dolphin's plugins for Bazaar, Mercurial, Git or Subversion from the kdesdk module these services are shown in the list. If these plugins are enabled and you enter a folder which is under version control, the version state (locally changed, up to date etc.) is indicated by icons and you have additional entries in the context menu like commit, update, add, remove etc.
In the service list it can be chosen as well if the , , and commands are shown in the context menu.
Dolphin has to be restarted to activate the changes for some of these settings.
This group contains settings which control the behavior of the trash.
Trash Settings in Dolphin's Preferences Dialog.
Files which are older than a configurable number of days can be deleted automatically.
The size of the trash can be limited to a configurable percentage of the disk size. If this limit is reached, a warning can be issued, or the oldest or largest files can be deleted automatically.
This group contains settings which control the general behavior of Dolphin. The group is divided further into four subgroups which can be accessed using the tab bar on top.
General Settings in Dolphin's Preferences Dialog.
In the View section, it can be configured if the view properties are stored for each folder or if common view properties are to be used for all folders.
When hovering a file or folder with the mouse, a small window with information about it is shown next to it if Show tooltips is enabled.
Show selection marker shows a small or button above an item's icon if the item is hovered with the mouse. These can be used to select or deselect the item.
Natural sorting of items controls how items are sorted in the view. If this option is enabled, the sort order of three example files will be
File1,
File2,
File10.
If this option is disabled, the normal alphabetical sorting will be used, which leads to the sort order
File1,
File10,
File2.
Enable Rename inline to use this mode if only one item is currently selected. If this option is disabled or several items are selected, a dialog will be displayed for renaming.
In this tab, it can be configured for which file types previews are shown. Moreover, the maximum size of remote files for which previews are generated can be chosen.
If previews are enabled for folders, previews of some files in the folder will be shown inside a folder's icon.
In the Ask for Confirmation When section, warning dialogs which are shown before potentially harmful actions can be enabled.
In this tab, some additional items can be enabled for the status bar, provided the status bar is wide enough:
A zoom slider which can be used to change the icon size quickly.
A bar that shows how much space is free on the current drive.
Note
Since Dolphin 4.9 the , , and commands of the context menu have to be enabled on the Services page.