SpaceFM

SpaceFM is a free and open source software project designed to act as both a desktop manager and file manager for Linux/UNIX-like operating systems who want to use one of those lightweight desktop environments/window managers, such as Openbox of Fluxbox.

Features at a glance

SpaceFM provides built-in VFS (Virtual File System), Bash integration, customizable menu system, as well as HAL- or udev-based device manager. Because of its speed, flexibility and stability, SpaceFM is quite popular among novice and power users alike.

It works great with any desktop environment or window manager that supports the GTK+GUI toolkit and the requirements listed at the end of the description. SpaceFM mounts ISO files and network filesystems, and it is extensible, allowing users to tweak it until it looks and feel the way you want it.

Offers a very simple and uncluttered GUI

The application’s graphical user interface (GUI) is designed with minimalist look and feel, allowing the user to focus on what’s important, managing his or her files. It offers basic file management functionality, such as copy, cut and paste of both files and folders, rename of files and folders, bookmark of files and folders, etc.

When using SpaceFM, users will be able to find files or folders as the type words in the main window, create links, change permissions to both folders and individual files, as well as to manage default actions and MIME file types.

Supported operating systems

The software has been successfully tested with numerous GNU/Linux distributions and it is included by default in the default software repositories of some of the most popular Linux kernel-based operating systems.

Its source tarball is distributed on Softoware, free of charge, for courageous users who want to optimize the application for its computer architecture and OS. Both 64-bit and 32-bit hardware platforms are supported at this time.

What is new in this release:

• 'Hover selects' options have been added to the General and Desktop tabs of the View|Preferences dialog to allow users to enable single-click opening while disabling automatic select on hover.
• You can now simply middle-click in the Path Bar to replace the Path Bar's contents and seek to a new location. Or hold Shift or Ctrl for normal middle-click insertion. (As always, you can also middle-click on a panel's status bar to copy the selected file names or paths - choose which by right-clicking on the status bar and setting the Middle Click option there.)
• Dialogs opened from the SpaceFM desktop should now pop to the top of other windows in all window managers. Such dialogs are no longer parented by the root window, as some managers handled this poorly.
• SpaceFM now passes file paths (%f/%F) rather than URIs when replacing %u/%U substitution variables in .desktop files' Exec keys. This change is also freedesktop spec compliant, and was made because some common .desktop files erroneously use %U instead of %F, and because most other file managers use this alternate form of substitution.
• When task error handling is set to 'continue', the task dialog is no longer brought to the top of others windows on every error, merely the first error, and at the end of the task.
• When renaming files/folders on the desktop with Arrange By set to Custom, the location of the item is now preserved.
• SpaceFM now works with gnome-terminal 3.10, which no longer accepts its old option --disable-factory. Note that this means gnome-terminal can no longer be used with the combination options Run As Task plus Run In Terminal (rare usage). If you use an older version of gnome-terminal, you can add the --disable-factory back by adding it in View|Preferences|Advanced|Terminal.
• SpaceFM Dialog now removes blank lines when reading a file into drop, combo, list, and mlist elements.
• SpaceFM Dialog now removes linefeeds when using command 'set' to change the value of an input or input-large element.
• SpaceFM Dialog now does not save element values to a specified @FILE when the Cancel button is pressed or the dialog is merely closed, and the user's manual has been updated with this information.
• inotify error messages presented on stderr now show more useful information.
• A problem which caused panel sizes to not be saved when the window was immediately maximized after installing SpaceFM (starting with a fresh config) has been corrected.
• A problem where the icon entry in the item properties dialog of checkbox-style toolbar items was disabled has been corrected.
• A problem when pressing Cancel in the font dialog opened from Preferences|Desktop which caused the font to be set to Default has been corrected.
• A configuration problem which caused some keypresses to not work correctly (due to panel_sliders-key) in 0.9.2-0.9.3 has been corrected.
• When installing a plugin, the item's Use-as-opener for setting is now automatically turned off, and the manual has been updated to note this.
• An overlapping display problem in Preferences|Desktop in some GTK2 themes has been corrected.
• configure now includes default make options -Wno-deprecated-declarations -Wformat -Wformat-security -Wreturn-type -Wunused-value. Please open an issue if this change breaks building on any compilers. (They can be removed if needed by editing configure.ac and running autogen.sh or autoreconf.)
• Translations have been updated: de ru sv Help translate.

What is new in version 0.9.2:

• The saving of column widths and window size when the SpaceFM window is maximized or fullscreen has changed, as detailed in the updated user's manual.
• su-to-root has been added to the supported su front-ends.
• Edit Command or Edit Script is now available in the design menu of custom menu items of type Command. Design mode shortcut F4 now opens a command script in editor.
• The task manager's height is now absolute, rather than being relative to the size of the window. This means the task manager height will remain consistent even if the window changes size while it is hidden, or between sessions.
• A "~/" prefix designating the current user's home directory is now permitted in bookmarks and custom items of type Bookmark.
• When the current folder is renamed, its tab is now automatically closed.
• A problem in detailed list view which caused the wrong automatic drag action to be used when dropping onto the last row in the list has been corrected.
• A problem in icon and compact views which caused the item under the cursor to be selected when entering a directory by double-clicking has been corrected.
• A problem which caused SpaceFM to treat a folder named *.iso as an ISO file has been corrected.
• A problem which caused a custom command's output dialog to not autoscroll on first show under some conditions has been corrected.

Requirements:

• GTK+
• udev or HAL
• desktop-file-utils
• shared-mime-info