What is the difference between "File Manager" vs "Open File Manager" apps?

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What is the difference between “File Manager” vs “Open File Manager” apps?

I don’t get it, they look the same (not icon wise but when opened), so how is there a difference? What does one do that the other doesn’t?

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Some context would be useful.
What template are you using?
Where do you see the apps?

In any case, what makes you think that these links do not do the same thing?

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3

App launchers are just .desktop files in a particular VM.

I guess in VMs with installed DE some entries get duplicated due to all the bloat. No, on second thought I guess it’s because Open File Manager is provided by Qubes (just like Run Terminal), while File Manager is just a Nautilus desktop file.

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So I cloned the Vault qube and when I noticed on a video tutorial that during setup of the custom qube I could plop apps over from “all available applications” into the right hand box of “applications shown in App Menu” I wasn’t sure what to add to view in a GUI my drive or if I even needed any at all. So I just added everything that sounded relevant, but then notice there was a “File Manager” as well as a “Open File Manager” and was perplexed as to what significant difference they had or if I needed both for one of them to function. I had and still have no idea

Thus, under my “apps” in my qube VMs I made a “qfile-bk” which is an altered clone of the Vault qube.

IMG_2035
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Image Description:
when hovered over the menu expands to show the apps I had added when setting it up. Of which included the 2 that I am confused over,
“File Manager” + “Open File Manager”

@Isolator so “Open File Manager” was made by the Qube team while “File Manager” is from Nautilus, alright. That gives me clarity thank you. For this qube I will just enable the “Open File Manager” then since it is a local backup qube to bridge between an external hard drive backup. Thank you!

5

One runs a script that opens file manager installed (like nautilus, dolphin, and etc.) and another is just a nautilus link that would not be present if you uninstall nautilus and use some better alternative file manager (like dolphin, krusader or any other).

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Is the “Open File Manager” the script one?

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I checked and I am wrong. It simply runs: xdg-open . inside the qube.
The script that checks apps is qubes-run-terminal (Run Terminal), that tries to find konsole, xfce4-terminal, xterm and other terminals to execute.

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So what I am after is which of these “apps” has the least privileges and/of vulnerabilities?

The “Open” File one?
Or
The “File” one?

As I am still lost … between their differences

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Sorry, did not get you, in your default case it is the same app - nautilus.

One more time:

  1. “Open File Manager” runs xdg-open . You can run it in qube’s terminal to check what happens. It will open default file manager. If you have only Nautilus as a file manager in the template, it will open Nautilus (as in default fedora templates). If you do not have Nautilus and use some other file manager like Dolphin, it will open it. Also you can read man xdg-open to get more information about file associations.
  2. File Manager runs Nautilus. Gnome devs decided to call it that way to confuse people. If you do not have Nautilus in the template, you will not see this option.

P.S. Nautilus is a default gnome file manager, also called Gnome Files to confuse users even further.

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Oh I understand now! Thank you so much for explaining all that, it really helped
:slightly_smiling_face:

I will use Open File Manager then so to leave my options open to use others like I will check out Dolphin

Thanks :smiley:

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