Advanced Options

Comparing files (Compare by content)

To find the difference between two files mark one in each panel and select File->Compare by content. Right now Krusader does not include a built-in graphical difference tool but supports several diff utilities: Kompare (part of the kdebase package), kdiff3 and xxdiff. If you have one of those installed the selected files will be compared, otherwise you'll get an error message.

Compare Directories

Krusader offers a graphical directory compare mode. To activate it select Mark->Compare Directories

Note

The files are not compared by content but by their names and dates only.

Mark->Compare setup

Configures the "Compare Directories" function.

  • Mark Newer and Single (default)

  • Mark Single

  • Mark Newer

  • Mark Different and Single

  • Mark Different

Calculate occupied space

There are two ways to calculate the occupied space of files/directories.

  • Pressing the SPACE on a directory under the cursor calculates the occupied size. Pressing SPACE a second time will toggle the marking of the directory without affecting the selection of other files/directories.

  • To calculate how much disk space is occupied by the marked files and directories in the active panel select File->Calculate Occupied Space. After a (hopefully) small delay a dialog box will be displayed with total occupied space and the number of files and directories you selected. The space occupied by every selected directory will be shown as if the user just pressed SPACE on that directories. If the active panel is browsing an archive, the numbers will apply to the unpacked size of the selected files and directories. After the calculation the marking state will toggle and the cusor will move one position down.

    Note

    Performing this operation on a very large filesystem (thousands of files) may be time consuming. You can always cancel the calculation process by clicking the "Cancel" button.

Browse remote FTP/SMB servers

There are three ways to browse a remote FTP/SMB server:

  • Using the built-in remote-connection manger. Important: RemoteMan has been replaced by a new bookmark manager since Krusader 1.25-beta1.

  • Selecting Commands->FTP New Connection which will pop-up a dialog that will ask for the remote site details. Leaving the password and user name fields empty will try to log you in as annonymous.

  • You can bookmark a directory on a remote host and return to this directory from the bookmark button on the top corner of your panel.

After you log to the remote server you can browse it just like your local hard drive with the following exceptions:

  • You can't execute files on remote servers.

  • Permissions can't always be calculated on remote servers so you might get a "?" on the permissions columns for some files.

  • Disk usage information is not availble for remote filesystems.

To end the current active connection select Commands->FTP Disconnect.

Send files by e-mail

Select a file and use right-click menu->Send by email. Selecting this option will open a new KMail window with the file already attached. Just fill in the subject and recipient(s) and send it.

Shred files

When you delete files in your local system they are not completely erased and the information stored in them can be recovered using special software and hardware tools. If you want to erase a file without traces, select the file and use right-click menu->Shred.

Split file

Choose File->split or Ctrl+P and the selected (big) file will be split up into multiple smaller files so that it can be placed on several smaller media (like diskettes, zip-drives, ...) or sent by e-mail. The target directory is the inactive panel.

In the upper line you can change the target directory, click on Split to split the selected file. You can stop the split process by clicking the Cancel button.

If the name of the original file is foo, then the name of the smaller files will be foo.000 foo.001 foo.002 etc. There is no limit in the number of smaler files, but it is recommended to limit to about 1000 files. Krusader creates a foo.crc file. This file contains the name, size and the crc checksum of the original file. It is possible to combine the file without the foo.crc file but in this case Krusader can't test if the the original file was recreated correctly.

An example of a foo.crc file:

      filename=foo
      size=432998467868
      crc32=21EB719A

Later on you can use the Combine files function to combine the multiple smaller files to the original file.

Combine files

This function combines multiple files to one file after the Split file function was used. Select a partial file foo.xxx and choose File->Combine files or Ctrl+B. The target directory is the unactive panel and can be changed.

The file names must be numbered in ascending order: foo.001, foo.002, foo.003 etc. or have letters in ascending order: ("split -b letter method") fileaa, fileab, fileac etc.

If the file foo.crc is found in the same directory as the partial files, Krusader will use this file to check the combined file for errors.

Locate GUI frontend

Krusader has a GUI frontend for the locate command (findutils). Locate is used for fast file searching. It does not search from a directory, but from a database. The package contains two files locate and updatedb. Updatedb walks through on the local filesystem and stores the file entries in the database. Often cron will call updatedb every night. Choose Commands->Locate or Ctrl+L to start this feature. Konfigurator can set additional arguments for updatedb.

Checkbox options

  • "Show only the existing files": if the database contains entries which do not exist any more (deleted, moved since the last updatedb), locate will not list them. It checks the existence of each file before listing in the results window (slow).

  • "Case sensitive": unchecking it will allow lower and upper case search.

Action buttons

  • "Locate": executes locate foo foo and places its output into the results window.

  • "Stop": stops the locate process.

  • "UpdateDB": starts updatedb for updating the locate database after entering the root password.

  • "Close": closes the locate window.

Results window

  • double click on an item: steps to its directory, makes the item visible and closes the locate dialog.

  • F3: views the current item.

  • F4: edit the current item.

  • right click: edit/view/find menu.