Send yourtips [email protected] 29 May - 11 June 2019^65Web User MasterclassTA KE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL
More advanced tipsfor whenyou’refeeling braveto changethe order and put your
favourites or mostuseditems first.
Instead of left-clicking the taskbar icon,
right-click it andselect a pinneditemto
openExplorer with that view.
Undoyour last action
Did you just dosomething to a file or
folder in Explorer andthenwish you
hadn’t? Perhaps you deletedthe wrong
thing, renamedsomething or moved it
to the wrong place. Don’t panic, just
undothe last actionbypressing Ctrl+Z.
This steps back through recent actions,
so if you rename one file, delete another
and move a third, you can undoeach
actionin turn byrepeatedly pressing
Ctrl+Z to stepback.
Use the searchbox
If the searchbox in the top-right corner
is too small or large, positionthe mouse
between the searchbox andpath box.
Whenit turns into a double-headed
arrow, click anddragto resize it.
There are many powerful search
options. At its most basic, just typein a
full or partial filename. The searchstarts
at the current Explorer locationand
includes all subfolders. Select the view,
suchas List or Details, whenthe search
is complete.
Showfolder paths
The top of Explorer displays the current
path, which will say something like This
PC> Windows(C:) > Users >Public.
Click any >to display amenulisting all
the folders at that point andselect one
to goto it. Click in the empty space to
the right of the path to see the true
folder path, suchas C:\Users\Public.
Another way to see the path is to click
View, thenOptions in the toolbar. Select
the Viewtab, thentick ‘Display the full
path in the titlebar’. It displays the path
at the top of the Explorer window.
Showselection sizes
Supposeyou want to copyfilesto
another drive, suchas a small USB
memory drive. How doyou knowif all
the fileswill fit? Onthe Viewtoolbar,
click ‘Details pane’ to opena panel on
the right. Select multiple filesto see the
totalsize displayed.
Another methodis to showthe status
bar. Click View, Options andonthe View
tab in the Properties window, enable
‘Show status bar’ nearthe bottomof the
settings. At the foot ofthe Explorer
window, you’ll see the totalsize of
selected files.
One last way to see the size of
selecteditems is to right-click one and
select Properties. The totalincludes
folders andsubfolders.
Hideand super-hidefiles
Files andfolders can behiddenfrom
Explorer, which is useful for keeping
items secret or private. Select a file or
folder and click View, ‘Hide selected
items’. Toviewor access hiddenfiles
andfolders, click Viewandtick the
‘Hidden items’ box. It’s not a
particularly secure way to hidefiles,
but novices may befooled.
Evenwith Explorer set to show
hiddenitems, someremain out of
sight. For example, Windowssets
important operating-systemitems to
both Hidden and System, to stopyou
seeingor changingthem, and
potentially causing problems.
Click File andopena command
prompt or PowerShell window. Type
attrib *.*andpressEnter to see
a list of filesandtheir attributes. You
will often see the hiddensystem file,
‘desktop.ini’. Hide any file bytyping
attrib +S +H “filename”and
pressEnter. It can’t beseenin
Explorer, evenwhenset to show
hiddenfiles. Use-S -Hto make the
file visible again.
System filesare extra hidden, but
not completely invisible. Tosee
system filesin Explorer, click View,
thenOptions. Select the Viewtab and
clear the tickbox labelled ‘Hide
protected operating system files’.Addtabs to
Explorer
Tabs have proved
so useful inweb
browsers, you
wonderwhy they
aren’t everywhere.
Microsoft tried and
gave up onadding
tabs to Explorer,
but some
programmers have
added their own.
QTTabBar (bit.ly/
qtt476) is one
example. It works
with Windows7,
but Windows10 updates have been
known to breakit in the past. If this
happens, install QTTabBar 1038and
restart, theninstall QTTabBar 1040
to fix it.
OpenExplorer – if you don’t see it,
runit fromthe Start menu. In
Windows7, tap Alt to showthe menu
and enable all the toolbars onthe
View, Toolbars menu. In Windows10,
select the Viewtab, click Options to
showthe menu and turn on all the
toolbars.
Aswith browser tabs, you click the
plusbuttonto opena new tab or
right-click a folder to openit in a new
tab.Files andfolders can bedragged
anddroppedontabs to move them.
Right-click a tab to see amenuwith
many tab functions, suchas closing
the neighbouring tab onthe right,
closing all tabs except this one,
cloning the tab, andso on. ATab
History optionat the bottomof the
menulists recentlyusedtabs – select
one to reopenit. You can dragand
droptabs to changethe order.
TidyTabs (bit.ly/ttabs476) is
another tool that adds tabs to
Explorer andit’s compatible with
Windows7, 8 and10 in both 32-
and64-bit versions. There’s afree
version for personal use that has all
the core features.Hide file s by adding the S and H attributes at the command promptAdd tabs to Explorer windows using QTTabBar or TidyTabs