Changing display modes in Nautilus

By | 2006/06/27

As a preface to this post I want to apologize for not remembering who mentioned the un-wanted Gnome feature. I want to say it was someone at the recent interLUG BBQ, but I’m not sure. I mean no offense by forgetting.. I’m sure understand.

Recently I heard complaint about the nautilus file browser in the latest release of gnome 2.14.2. I believe the complaint was the ‘spacial’ mode that it uses. The following is taken from the Ubuntu Desktop Guide that I recently picked up.

Ubuntu's file manager Nautilus provides two modes in which you can interact with your filesystem: Spatial mode and Browser mode.

  • In Browser mode, the file manager window represents a browser, which can display any location. Opening a folder updates the current file manager window to show the contents of the new folder.
  • In Spatial mode, the file manager window represents a particular folder. Opening a folder opens the new window for that folder. Each time you open a particular folder, you will find its window displayed in teh same place on the screen and the same size as the last time you viewed it (this is the reason for the name).

Browser mode is the default setting on Ubuntu, but you may wish to change this:

  1. In Nautilus, choose Edit > Preferences.
  2. Click on the Behaviour tab.
  3. Unselect the 'Always open in browser windows' check box.
  4. Close and reopen Nautilus.