XFE Homepage

Documentation

System Requirements

Xfe is written in C++ and built using the FOX graphical toolkit library. Therefore, to build the current Xfe version, you need the FOX library 1.6.x installed on your system. Note that Xfe does not compile with the development version 1.7.x of FOX!

Xfe is known to run on Linux based systems. It should compile and run on any Unix or Unix-like system. It doesn't run on Windows.

Installation instructions are given below.

Installation

Install without dependency on any (not too old) Linux distribution

To install Xfe, type in a terminal:
chmod +x xfe-2.0.1-install-linux-amd64.run
sudo ./xfe-2.0.1-install-linux-amd64.run

Install from sources

To install Xfe in /usr/local, type in a terminal:
./configure
make
sudo make install

To install Xfe in another place, for example in /opt, type in a terminal:
./configure --prefix=/opt
make
sudo make install

The above installations assume that the FOX library is installed in a standard place (/usr or /usr/local). If FOX is installed in a non standard place, for example in /opt, then you should run in a terminal:
PATH=$PATH:/opt/bin CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/include LDFLAGS=-L/opt/lib ./configure --prefix=/opt
make
sudo make install

Install from a DEB package (on 64 bits Ubuntu and Debian Linux compatible distributions)

To install Xfe as a package, type in a terminal:
sudo dpkg -i xfe_2.0.1-1jammy_amd64.deb

Install with Guix

Xfe is available in official channel of Guix:
guix install xfe

Configuration Files

You can perform any Xfe customization (layout, file associations, key bindings, etc.) without editing any file by hand. However, you may want to understand the configuration principles, because some customizations can also easily be done by manually editing the configurations files. Be careful to quit Xfe before manually editing any configuration file, otherwise changes could not be taken into account.

The system-wide configuration file xferc is located in /usr/share/xfe, /usr/local/share/xfe or /opt/local/share/xfe, in the given order of precedence.

The local configuration files for Xfe, Xfw, Xfi, Xfa and Xfp are located in the ~/.config/xfe directory. They are named xferc, xfwrc, xfvrc, xfirc, xfarc and xfprc.

At the very first Xfe run, the system-wide configuration file is copied into the local configuration file ~/.config/xfe/xferc which does not exists yet. If the system-wide configuration file is not found (in case of an unusal install place), a dialog asks the user to select the right place. It is thus easier to customize Xfe (this is particularly true for the file associations) by hand editing because all the local options are located in the same file.

Default PNG icons are located in /usr/share/xfe/icons/default-theme or /usr/local/share/xfe/icons/default-theme, depending on your installation. You can easily change the icon theme path in Preferences dialog.

Translations Available

Argentinian Spanish (Bruno Gilberto Luciani)
Bosnian (Samir Ribi, Bajrami Emran, Balagija Jasmina, Bilalovi, Omar Cogo Emir)
Brazilian Portuguese (Jose Carlos Medeiros, Eduardo R.B.S., Tomàs Acauan Schertel, Phantom X)
Catalan (Pere Orga)
Chinese (Xin Li)
Colombian Spanish (Vladimir Támara)
Czech (David 'dvx' Vachulka)
Danish (Jonas Bardino, Vidar Jon Bauge)
Dutch (Hans Strijards)
French (Claude Leo Mercier, RB)
German (Bastian Kleineidam, Tim Benke, Joo Martin)
Greek (Nikos Papadopoulos)
Hungarian (Attila SZERVÃC, Sándor Sipos)
Italian (Giorgio Moscardi, Valerio Alliod, Claudio Fontana)
Japanese (Karl Skewes)
Norwegian (Vidar Jon Bauge)
Polish (Jacek Dziura)
Portuguese (Miguel Santinho)
Russian (Dimitri Sertolov, Vad Vad)
Spanish (Felix Medrano Sanz, Lucas 'Basurero' Vieites, Martín Carr)
Swedish (Anders F. Bjorklund)
Taiwanese chinese (Wei-Lun Chao)
Turkish (erkaN)

UTF-8 is supported : check that your LANG environment variable is set to be UTF-8 compliant or accents and special characters could be wrong displayed.

Non Latin based languages

Xfe can display its user interface and also the file names in non latin character based languages, provided that you have selected a Unicode font that supports your character set. To select a suitable font, use the Edit / Preferences / Fonts menu item.

Multilingual Unicode TrueType fonts can be found at this address: http://www.slovo.info/unifonts.htm

Default Key Bindings

Below are the global default key bindings. These key bindings are common to all X File applications.

Select all - Ctrl-A
Copy to clipboard - Ctrl-C
Search - Ctrl-F
Search previous - Shift-Ctrl-G
Search next - Ctrl-G
Go to home folder - Ctrl-H
Invert selection - Ctrl-I
Open file - Ctrl-O
Print file - Ctrl-P
Quit application - Ctrl-Q
Paste from clipboard - Ctrl-V
Close window - Ctrl-W
Cut to clipboard - Ctrl-X
Deselect all - Ctrl-Z
Display help - F1
Create new file - Ctrl-N
Create new folder - F7
Big icon list - F10
Small icon list - F11
Detailed file list - F12
Toggle display hidden files - Ctrl-F6
Toggle display thumbnails - Ctrl-F7
Vertical panels - Ctrl-Ctrl-F1
Horizontal panels - Ctrl-Shift-F2
Go to working folder - Shift-F2
Go to parent folder - Backspace
Go to previous folder - Ctrl-Backspace
Go to next folder - Shift-Backspace

Below are the default X File Explorer key bindings. These key bindings are specific to the Xfe application.

Add bookmark - Ctrl-B
Filter files - Ctrl-D
Execute command - Ctrl-E
Create new symbolic link - Ctrl-J
Switch panels - Ctrl-K
Clear address bar - Ctrl-L
Mount file system (Linux only)- Ctrl-M
Rename file - F2
Refresh panels - Ctrl-R
Symlink files to location - Ctrl-S
Launch terminal - Ctrl-T
Unmount file system (Linux only) - Ctrl-U
Synchronize panels - Ctrl-Y
Create new window - F3
Edit - F4
Copy files to location - F5
Move files to location - F6
File properties - F9
One panel mode - Ctrl-F1
Tree and panel mode - Ctrl-F2
Two panels mode - Ctrl-F3
Tree and two panels mode - Ctrl-F4
Toggle display hidden directories - Ctrl-F5
Go to trash can - Ctrl-F8
Create new root window - Shift-F3
View - Shift-F4
Move files to trash can - Del
Restore files from trash can - Alt-Del
Delete files - Shift-Del
Copy file names to clipboard - Ctrl-Shift-N
Empty trash can - Ctrl-Del

Below are the default X File Image key bindings. These key bindings are specific to the xfi application.

View previous image - Ctrl-J
View next image - Ctrl-K
Zoom to fit window - Ctrl-F
Mirror image horizontally - Ctrl-H
Zoom image to 100% - Ctrl-I
Rotate image to left - Ctrl-L
Rotate image to right - Ctrl-R
Mirror image vertically - Ctrl-V

Below are the default X File Write key bindings. These key bindings are specific to the xfw application.

Toggle word wrap mode - Ctrl-K
Goto line - Ctrl-L
Create new document - Ctrl-N
Replace string - Ctrl-R
Save changes to file - Ctrl-S
Toggle line numbers mode - Ctrl-T
Toggle upper case mode - Shift-Ctrl-U
Toggle lower case mode - Ctrl-U
Redo last change - Ctrl-Y
Undo last change - Ctrl-Z

X File Archive (Xfa) and X File Package (Xfp) only use some of the global key bindings.

Note that all the default key bindings listed above can be customized in the Xfe Preferences dialog. However, some key actions are hardcoded an cannot be changed. These include:

Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-- - zoom in and zoom out image in xfi
Shift-F10 - display context menus in Xfe
Space - select items in file lists
Return - enter directories in file lists, open files, select button actions, etc.
Esc - close current dialog, unselect files, etc.

Places

Starting with version 2.0, the folder panel features two tabs: one is the classic Tree view and the other is a Places view. This Places view allows to view desktop folders (home, downloads, documents, music, ...), of drive mounts, network shares and user's bookmarks.

Network shares mounted from the desktop using gvfs (GNOME or XFCE) appear in the Places view and can be unmounted (KDE network shares are not supported). Mount points for removable devices also appear in the Places view.

Bookmarks can be added, removed and customized (order, name and icon) using a context menu.

The Places view is optional as is also the Tree view (related settings are located in the Preferences / General dialog).

HiDPI support

Starting with version 1.44, Xfe supports HiDPI monitors. All users have to do is to manually adjust the screen resolution using the Edit / Preferences / Appearance / DPI option. A value of 200 - 240 dpi should be fine for Ultra HD (4K) monitors.

Scripts

Custom shell scripts can be executed from within Xfe on the files that are selected in a panel. You have to first select the files you want to proceed, then right click on the file list and go to the Scripts sub menu. Last, choose the script you want to apply on the selected files.

The script files must be located in the ~/.config/xfe/scripts folder and have to be executable. You can organize this folder as you like by using sub-folders. You can use the Tools / Go to script folder menu item to directly go to the script folder and manage it.

Here is an example of a simple shell script that list each selected file on the terminal from where Xfe was launched:

#!/bin/sh
for arg
do
/bin/ls -la "$arg"
done

You can of course use programs like xmessage, zenity or kdialog to display a window with buttons that allows you to interact with the script. Here is a modification of the above example that uses xmessage:

#!/bin/sh
(
echo "ls -la"
for arg
do
/bin/ls -la "$arg"
done
) | xmessage -file -

Most often, it is possible to directly use Nautilus scripts found on the Internet without modifications.

Drag and Drop Operations

Dragging a file or group or files (by moving the mouse while maintaining the left button pressed) to a directory or a file panel, optionally opens a dialog that allows to select the file operation : copy, move, link or cancel.

Trash system

Xfe implements a trash system that is fully compliant with the Freedesktop standards. This allows the user to move files to the trash can and to restore files from it, from within Xfe or your favorite desktop. Note that the trash files location is: $home/.local/share/Trash/files

Tips for File List

Select files and right click to open a context menu on the selected files
Press Ctrl + right click to open a context menu on the file panel
When dragging a file/folder to a folder, hold on the mouse on the folder to open it
Displayed colums and column order can be selected in the Preferences / File List dialog

Tips for Tree List

Select a folder and right click to open a context menu on the selected folder
Press Ctrl + right click to open a context menu on the tree panel
When dragging a file/folder to a folder, hold on the mouse on the folder to expand it

Copy/paste file path or name

Select a file and press Ctrl-C to copy its name into the clipboard. Select a file and press Ctrl-C to copy the file path to the clipboard. Then in a dialog or an application, press Ctrl-V to paste the file path. Use the Copy name menu item (or press Ctrl-Shift-N) to copy the file name (without path) to the clipboard.
In a file operation dialog, select a filename in the line containing the source name and paste it directly to the destination using the middle button of your mouse. Then modify it to suit your needs.

Add files to the clipboard

You can select files from a directory, copy them to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C. This erases the previous clipboard content. Then, you can move to another directory, select other files and add them to the clipboard content by pressing Ctrl-Shift-C. This does not erase the previous clipboard content. At last, you can move to the destination and press Ctrl-V to copy all the files you have in the clipboard. Of course, this also works with Ctrl-X and Ctrl-Shift-X to cut and paste the files.

Startup notification

Startup notification is the process that displays a feedback (a sandbox cursor or whatever) to the user when he has started an action (file copying, application launching, etc.). Depending on the system, there can be some issues with startup notification. If Xfe was compiled with startup notification support, the user can disable it for all applications at the global Preferences level. He can also disable it for individual applications, by using the dedicated option in the first tab of the Properties dialog. This latter way is only available when the file is an executable. Disabling startup notification can be useful when starting an old application that doesn't support the startup notification protocol (e.g. Xterm).

Root mode

If pkexec is installed and configured on your system, then this is the best way to switch to root mode
If you use the sudo root mode, it can be useful to add password feedback to the sudo command. For this purpose, edit your sudoers file like this:

LICENSE

Xfe is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Copyright 2002-2025 -

THANKS

To Maxim Baranov: the original creator of XWin Commander.
To all people that have provided translations, useful patches and advices.

MENU

RELATED LINKS