File List and File Menu
The file list on the right side of the application shows the results of your search. It also
allows for various views on the different files. Right click any one file to get the context
menu. The context menu and the "File" section of the application menu essentially offer the same operations,
but with a subtle difference concerning the respective selection model:
Operations called from the context menu act on the set of highlighted files (the entries selected by
clicking with the mouse). The application menu on the other hand processes the checked files, i.e.
the entries selected by virtue of the checkboxes in the first column.
Context menu and application menu both display the following view options which are made available
if only a single file is selected:
- Edit: Open the file in a simple editor for quick changes.
- View: Display the matches of a regular expression from the "Find..." area.
- Preview: Preview the result of a replace operation.
- Info: Show various file information about the file.
Each of those views will allow you to specify the encoding (character set) that should
be used to read and write the file. Unless you change it, the platform default encoding will be used.
If the actual encoding of a file is incompatible with the default encoding, this may result in
"funny characters" or error messages. Note that you can add character sets to the list through
the application configuration.
The "View" option is only available if the "Find" tab or the "Replace" tab is selected.
It will highlight the matches of the regular expression on the respective tab.
The "Preview" option is only available if the "Replace" tab is selected.
If you are running on Java 6 or later, the context menu will display two options to call external
programs:
- Open File: Open the file in the systems default editor.
- Open Directory: Open the files directory in the file system browser.
Linux user should read the note at the bottom of this page.
The context menu furthermore offers a "Rename" operation if not more than one file is selected.
As you will have guessed, it allows you to change the name of the selected file.
In the context menu, as well as in the "File" menu, you will find also the following operational options:
- Copy: Copy one or more files to another directory.
- Tree Copy: Copy files to another directory together with their directory tree, starting at the base directory.
- Move: Move one or more files to another directory.
- Delete: Delete one or more files from the hard disk.
Don't forget that the selection model of context menu and "File" menu is different! If you choose an operational
option from the context menu, it will operate on the set of hightlighted files that you have selected with the mouse.
If you choose an operational option from the "File" menu, it will use the set of checked files that you may have selected
by clicking the checkboxes of the file list.
The tree copy operation may need some more explanation. If the base directory for the find command was c:\base\dir, and
you tree copy a file c:\base\dir\subdir\a.file to some other directory c:\elsewhere, it will actually be copied
to c:\elsewhere\subdir\a.file. That is, tree copy also copies the files relative directory tree.
The "File" menu allows also to export the result file list to a file, or
to import a list of files for further processing. When exporting a file list,
the full path of each file is written on a new line. This is also the expected
format of the input file. However, if a path can not be found, the generated list
entry will automatically be unselected.
At the very bottom of the result file list you will find the number of selected files.
By default all files are selected. You will also see an indication at the bottom
should there be any errors during a replace or rename operation.
Linux User Note: Linux user should be aware that the Java calls to the system desktop have implementation flaws in
(at least some versions of) JDK 6 for Linux. They might not work properly for some desktop configurations and make
FAR display obscure error messages such as "Failed to show URI". However, those are JDK bugs beyond my reach and
responsibility and a good reason to update to Java 7. This concerns only the Open File and Open Directory option
from the context menu.