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#1 2021-01-14 22:20:12

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Hi all.

I am very new to Arch, installed it less than one week ago!. I really like it.

I am trying to get a "minimal system" going and thus far have not installed any (gui) file managers. I did install a browser (brave) and also Texstudio.

Both these programs seem to come with a file manager. Whenever I "save as" a file, a gui file manager pops up. But I can not seem to start that manager without starting either of these programs.

Any ideas what these file managers are? Also, how can I start it "on its own"?

Or am I misunderstanding things and there is no file manager on my system and these programs do it internally in some weird way I do not understand...

Cheers all.

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#2 2021-01-14 22:39:58

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Evil_Hamster wrote:

Or am I misunderstanding things and there is no file manager on my system and these programs do it internally in some weird way I do not understand...

Correct smile

What you are seeing is the respective file chooser for each application, this isn't the same thing as a standalone file manager and they can't be launched independently.

In the case of brave it's the gtk file chooser wheras texlive uses the qt file chooser. This is down to the respective UI toolkit which each application is built upon.


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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#3 2021-01-14 22:52:28

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Slithery wrote:
Evil_Hamster wrote:

Or am I misunderstanding things and there is no file manager on my system and these programs do it internally in some weird way I do not understand...

Correct smile

What you are seeing is the respective file chooser for each application, this isn't the same thing as a standalone file manager.

In the case of chromium it's the gtk file chooser wheras texlive uses the qt file chooser. This is down to the respective UI toolkit which each application is built upon.


Aaah, thank you very much. It does clear things up quite a bit smile.

If I may ask, is there a way to call only the file chooser parts of the applications? Cause they do most of the things I might (cause right now the terminal seems to be enough and it is growing on me like no bodies business smile) even consider using a file manager for (create/delete/move files/folders and have a nice visible way of looking at my files).

Cheers.

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#4 2021-01-14 23:03:47

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

I edited my post while you were replying - unfortunately they can't be launched separately.

Have you seen List of applications - Graphical file managers yet? The Arch way of doing things is not for us to recommend anything specific, we prefer it if you install a few alternatives to try them out and make your own decision as everyone has different requirements.

As long as you remove any programs that you don't want to keep using pacman and delete the hidden config files in your home directory there shouldn't be any trace left of them once you have chosen what's best for you

PS - Welcome to Arch smile

PPS - I know I just said that we don't do recomendations, but for what it's worth I use pcanfm-qt on my lightweight system. Other peoples opinions can be found here...   https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=137610


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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#5 2021-01-14 23:07:27

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Slithery wrote:

I edited my post while you were replying - unfortunately they can't be launched separately.

Have you seen List of applications - Graphical file managers yet? The Arch way of doing things is not for us to recommend anything specific, we prefer it if you install a few alternatives to try them out and make your own decision as everyone has different requirements.

As long as you remove any programs that you don't want to keep using pacman and delete the hidden config files in your home directory there shouldn't be any trace left of them once you have chosen what's best for you

PS - Welcome to Arch smile


Thank you for the welcome and the answer.

Yes, I know the wiki, it is rather amazing and I know that there are many file managers. But I was thinking, why install an other one, if I can "hack" myself to something that is already on the system smile.

Anyway, cheers and have a pleasant day.

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#6 2021-01-14 23:22:14

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Evil_Hamster wrote:

But I was thinking, why install an other one, if I can "hack" myself to something that is already on the system smile.

A very good question.

As you already have both gtk3 and qt installed on your system then installing a file manager based on either of them shouldn't take up much room.  If you are that concerned about package count then just do a bit of digging, for example looking at the package details for pcmanfm-qt (which is what I use on my lightweight system) you can see that it's only a 2MB package with a couple of dependencies compared to something like nautilus which is 14MB with loads of dependencies.


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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#7 2021-01-15 13:24:06

teckk
Member
Registered: 2013-02-21
Posts: 518

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

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#8 2021-01-15 14:02:44

twelveeighty
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2011-09-04
Posts: 1,096

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Evil_Hamster wrote:

But I was thinking, why install an other one, if I can "hack" myself to something that is already on the system

As teckk pointed out, there are several APIs/SDKs out there and it's actually a fun hacking little project to build your own and get to know their respective build process, programming language options, etc. I think that's why there are so many options out there, most of them started with the same goal: just hacking a file manager for fun.
You'll probably notice pretty quickly after you have a working prototype that the point of file managers isn't really to show a list of files to pick from, but what actually *happens* with those selections (editing, copying, launching apps, etc.), but who cares as long as you're learning and having fun hacking code.

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#9 2021-01-17 09:26:42

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Ohh, did not see that there were further answer to it. Was not sure if I should have answered or not (as it is kinda bumping it up again, which is not the desired outcome), but I deiced that the polite thing would be to at least say thanks. So thanks smile.

Literally, all 3 answers are useful and stuff I plan on digging deeper into. Cheers, and I kinda plan on "closing the thread". I will post follow up questions, should they arise, to separate threads.

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#10 2021-01-17 12:17:58

xerxes_
Member
Registered: 2018-04-29
Posts: 665

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

@Evil_Hamster
Write in chromium in address bar file:/// and see if this satisfy you.

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#11 2021-01-17 20:15:22

arojas
Developer
From: Spain
Registered: 2011-10-09
Posts: 2,093

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Evil_Hamster wrote:

If I may ask, is there a way to call only the file chooser parts of the applications?

kdialog --getopenfilename

will open the KDE file picker. You can even trick it into opening the GTK one by using QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3

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#12 2021-01-17 21:23:18

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

arojas wrote:
kdialog --getopenfilename

will open the KDE file picker. You can even trick it into opening the GTK one by using QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3

Hmm.. neither worked for me... the second one does not do anything (at least visible) and the second one simply says

bash: kdialog: command not found

EDIT/PS: I feel a bit silly saying it, but perhaps it has to do with the fact that I do not use chromium, so much as I use brave, a chromium based browser. But, and I do feel silly, saying that it is chromium based does not mean it uses the same file manager...thingie.
sorry for the confusion hmm

Also, I installed it via git (cause its pacman-able smile). So, most of it (if not all) is lying in my home folder...

But I did install Texstudio the "old fashioned" way, so if anyone knows how to call its file opener/searcher, that would be peachy ... smile

Last edited by Evil_Hamster (2021-01-17 21:38:18)

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#13 2021-01-17 22:42:40

arojas
Developer
From: Spain
Registered: 2011-10-09
Posts: 2,093

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

Evil_Hamster wrote:

Hmm.. neither worked for me... the second one does not do anything (at least visible) and the second one simply says

bash: kdialog: command not found

Of course you need to install a program before using it.

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#14 2021-01-18 08:18:28

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 50,012

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

zenity --file-selection --save # --save will allow you to create directories

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#15 2021-01-18 09:09:41

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

seth wrote:
zenity --file-selection --save # --save will allow you to create directories

Sorry, does not seem to work either...

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#16 2021-01-18 09:19:01

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 50,012

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

"does not work" is not a useful problem description and like kdialog, you have to install https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/zenity/
It will likely just carry less dependencies (since I assume if you had KDE/plasma installed, yo'd have kdlialog anyway)

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#17 2021-01-18 09:38:19

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

seth wrote:

"does not work" is not a useful problem description and like kdialog, you have to install https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/zenity/
It will likely just carry less dependencies (since I assume if you had KDE/plasma installed, yo'd have kdlialog anyway)

well, thanks. I guess I should have written
bash: zenity: command not found

The thing is, if I want to install something with few dependencies, that would be a very helpful suggestion, and it still is!

But, the idea of this thread was to understand, if it is possible to get this particular bit of a given program to run, without installing anything else. Since this does not seem to be the case, without writing half a program myself smile, these are not 100% what I am looking for.

It's not that I am ungrateful for the suggestions, it is more that I already have ranger and that seems sufficient right now. I just would not say no to a "free toe".

Thanks and have a great day.

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#18 2021-01-18 09:47:58

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 50,012

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

The thing in chromium is not a file manager nor a standalone process but a standard dialog provided by the GTK3 library (which zenity is essentially a thin wrapper around) to query a file location.

You cannot trivially run just "a part" of a program - you'd still have to load the entire chromium process and make it run the segment that shows the dialog .

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#19 2021-01-18 18:23:20

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

seth wrote:

The thing in chromium is not a file manager nor a standalone process but a standard dialog provided by the GTK3 library (which zenity is essentially a thin wrapper around) to query a file location.

You cannot trivially run just "a part" of a program - you'd still have to load the entire chromium process and make it run the segment that shows the dialog .

Thank you for the explenation.

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#20 2021-01-19 00:06:36

MuddyArch
Member
Registered: 2020-08-18
Posts: 34

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

I see that you are already using ranger, so I recommend putting more time into exploring the capabilities of ranger. It has a lot of functionality and I think besides "drag and grab" multiple files with the mouse it can do everything a basic gui file manager can.

You said you were looking for "create/delete/move files/folders and have a nice visible way of looking at my files"

With ranger, you can type ":" (so shift+;) to open the "ranger commandline" which takes ranger specific commands (you can find a list by typing "?" and then "c").

A new directory can be made using
:mkdir newdir

A new file
:touch file
(luckily a number of ranger commands mirror shell commands)

You can move folders using vim like keybindings (find a list with "?" then "k")
dd to cut
yy to copy
pp to paste
pl to paste a symlink

You can mark multiple files/directories to enact commands/keybindings upon. Spacebar marks what you currently have selected (you can hold it down to keep marking files), "v" marks everything in the directory your cursor is in.

so if you download a bunch of photos you could open up ranger
navigate to ~/Downloads
press v to mark all
press dd to cut
navigate to ~/Photos
press pp to paste

There are also a number of programs that integrate with ranger, some allow you to have image previews for example. I suggest reading through

man ranger

to understand how to get yourself setup with the configuration files, as they contain ways to expand the functionality of ranger. There are also a huge amount of commands/keybindings you can view using "?" while in ranger beyond those I have mentioned, so take some time to look over them as well.

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#21 2021-01-19 10:59:38

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

MuddyArch wrote:

I see that you are already using ranger, so I recommend putting more time into exploring the capabilities of ranger. It has a lot of functionality and I think besides "drag and grab" multiple files with the mouse it can do everything a basic gui file manager can.

You said you were looking for "create/delete/move files/folders and have a nice visible way of looking at my files"

With ranger, you can type ":" (so shift+;) to open the "ranger commandline" which takes ranger specific commands (you can find a list by typing "?" and then "c").

A new directory can be made using
:mkdir newdir

A new file
:touch file
(luckily a number of ranger commands mirror shell commands)

You can move folders using vim like keybindings (find a list with "?" then "k")
dd to cut
yy to copy
pp to paste
pl to paste a symlink

You can mark multiple files/directories to enact commands/keybindings upon. Spacebar marks what you currently have selected (you can hold it down to keep marking files), "v" marks everything in the directory your cursor is in.

so if you download a bunch of photos you could open up ranger
navigate to ~/Downloads
press v to mark all
press dd to cut
navigate to ~/Photos
press pp to paste

There are also a number of programs that integrate with ranger, some allow you to have image previews for example. I suggest reading through

man ranger

to understand how to get yourself setup with the configuration files, as they contain ways to expand the functionality of ranger. There are also a huge amount of commands/keybindings you can view using "?" while in ranger beyond those I have mentioned, so take some time to look over them as well.


Thank you for the lengthy introduction, it is indeed very helpful. I had indeed not discovered them yet! I do not doubt that, once used to, it can be "just as powerful". That is actually part of the reason I made a "minimal" install on my Laptop, to get used to it. (My desktop is still running Mint, cause when I do work, I want to use what is easiest for me and right now, the desktop is still a bit easier, though I have to say, I did not expect to get used to a command line interface that easily. It is almost second nature in a week, which is a rather thrilling experience smile)

But one advantage that a GUI desktop has, that I do not think can be easily elevated, is that you can see the little pictures of, say movies, or pictures, or even PDF files. Also of different apps etc. That does give a visual help when browsing and makes some things a bit more "appetising". Anyway, again. I do not want a GUI file manager to use it as a default thing, just thought that if I already had it, having a nice command that could call it once in a while would be handy.

Not worth installing though smile. Command line ftw.

Cheers again for the tutorial.

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#22 2021-01-19 11:29:45

progandy
Member
Registered: 2012-05-17
Posts: 5,184

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

The GTK save dialog has no ability to display file previews anyways, you'd need a patched gtk3 for that: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gtk3 … icon-view/

If you just want icons for all files in ranger, then look here: https://github.com/alexanderjeurissen/ranger_devicons
To preview the selected image: https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Image-Previews

Last edited by progandy (2021-01-19 11:30:16)


| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |

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#23 2021-01-19 13:52:22

Evil_Hamster
Member
Registered: 2021-01-14
Posts: 27

Re: What is the file manager that comes up when I "save as" in chromium?

progandy wrote:

The GTK save dialog has no ability to display file previews anyways, you'd need a patched gtk3 for that: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gtk3 … icon-view/

If you just want icons for all files in ranger, then look here: https://github.com/alexanderjeurissen/ranger_devicons
To preview the selected image: https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Image-Previews


Uuuuu the second link especially looks juicy (I still need to figure out what the third does). Thanks.. thanks a lot.. that is another hour of my life gone... I hope you are happy big_smile.

Last edited by Evil_Hamster (2021-01-19 13:53:10)

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