Adding Context Menus in the Dolphin File Manager

The concept of the right-click context menu has been around since forever but you don't have to be content with the defaults that come with your software, especially file managers. KDE's Dolphin and Konqueror are no exceptions. It's a complete no brainer to install more contextual menus, so let's do it.

Adding menus works exactly the same way in both managers (the only difference is that Konqueror is also a web browser too). I'm using Dolphin today. So, fire it up and select Configure Dolphin from the drop-down Settings menu.

Figure 1: Configuration: where the hot stuff is

And click on Services from the side menu. Dolphin will now display a list of installed context menus (which can be disabled by unchecking the tick boxes and re-enabling if you decide you need them again).

Figure 2: Look like I've run amok with services

As you can see I've already been in the midst of an install frenzy. How? Simple. Just click on Download New Services and Dolphin will open a new window populated with easy-to-install "addons" for your file manager menus.

Figure 3: More menus than a Michelin starred restuarant

The final step is simply to hit install and the process is automatic. Helpfully, users can filter addons by categories like installed, newest and most installed. Unlike Konqueror in previous incarnations, no need to visit a website and download a zipped tarball and follow a relatively tortuous configuration process. Simple is as simple does. Just for good measure, what you install in Dolphin gets installed in Konqueror and what is uninstalled in Konqueror gets uninstalled in Dolphin. The process is identical in both file managers. Added bonus: if you are runnning the Folder View Widget on the KDE desktop, all those new context menus will be available to you as well!

Everyone will have their own preferences and favourites. There's lots to choose from but once you've installed the ones you want you will find that you can do a lot of stuff from within Dolphin (and Konqueror) that might otherwise necessitate the installation of stand alone applications. It's a result all round. If you can point and click, you're quids in.

License

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