Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

Hey!! Ok. So I'm probably the last one to figure this out, but for those who haven't:

The built-in “File Manager” application only shows files in your /home/user/MyDocs directory.

However, you can browse your entire file system by creating a symbolic link:
open X Term and create a link into MyDocs directory by typing the following code:

cd ~/MyDocs
ln -s / Root

The Root now appears in the File manager. You can choose any name instead of Root or make symbolic links to other directories.

Nate

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

Nice trick but it has been posted before :)

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

But there is at least one catch with such symlinks in /home/user/MyDocs. The Maemo backup tool, when doing a backup of the MyDocs folder, is also following the symlinks and therefore will try to backup *much* more than you probably want it to backup.
Of course you still have the possbility to do the backup the old fashioned commandline-way without the backup tool, or you can unlink the symlinks each time before you do a backup.

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

There've also been problems, historically, with metalayer-crawler (the built-in Media Player's library indexer) getting stuck in a recursive loop when following symlinks.

I've no idea if this has been fixed.

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

Don't think so. I have symlinks from the MyDocs folder to my external SD card and also to a NFS share which is mounted while the N800 is connected to my network at home.

Sometimes metalayer-crawler gets lost in the depths of these symlinks and then is draining the battery like crazy. Doesn't happen very often, only every few weeks.

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

thanks for the explanation. The dreaded meta-layer crawler has hosed me up a number of times, and I hadn't made the connection.

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

Why not just install emelFM?

Re: Extend Functionality of built-in File Manager
 

I encountered this loop in meta-crawler when I added this link. It seemed to be persistent and killed the system performance and burned up the battery. So I wouldn't recommend this nice trick. It caused me a lot of trouble.