The IVLE File Browser allows you to access and edit any files that you have stored in IVLE.
See also: Subversion, Running and Serving.
The IVLE file browser works rather like other file browsers. Upon opening it you will be presented with a series of icons representing the directories (the folder icons) and files (the paper icons) in your home directory.
Clicking the name of a directory will open the directory, while clicking the name or icon of a directory or file will select it - multiple directories or files may be selected by toggling the checkboxes in the far left column. The breadcrumb trail at the top of the file browser window can be used to navigate to a directory higher in the hierarchy.
Most possible actions can be found immediately below the breadcrumbs, near the top of the file browser window. Those more often used can be seen immediately, while others are found inside the More actions... dropdown input.
Actions will be enabled or disabled depending on the current directory and selected files or directories. Regardless of the state, hovering over any action will display a description.
Note that although most actions will not require further input, some may display a prompt for confirmation or other input.
There are two methods of adding files to your IVLE home directory - uploading files from your local computer, and creating new files or directories.
Creation actions can be found inside the Directory actions section of the More actions... dropdown, as New Directory and New File. In either case, a prompt will be displayed to request the name of the new path.
Deletion is accomplished in a similar manner. The Delete file action will always prompt before performing the removal, to protect you from potentially destructive mistakes. Please note that directories are removed recursively - all of their contents will be removed as well!
The IVLE file browser also includes a handy text editor. This is easily accessed by means of the Open action on any file. The editor behaves much like traditional text editing applications, but has some features that you may not have seen before - syntax highlighting and line numbers, for example.
Whilst inside the editor, a subset of the usual directory actions are available, as well as some editor-specific features. Saving behaves as in a normal application - Save As... requests a new file name (prompting to overwrite if needed), with Save using the existing filename. Pressing Ctrl+S will also save the current file. Although the appropriate syntax highlighting language should be automatically detected, it may be overridden with the dropdown input in the editor actions area.
To return to a directory listing, use the breadcrumbs at the top of the editor window.
IVLE offers a simple facility to upload files from your local computer, through the Upload File directory action. If the Unpack zip file checkbox is selected and the file is a ZIP file, the contents will be extracted into the current directory. This eases uploading of large numbers of files or complex directory hierarchies. Unchecking this option allows upload of the ZIP file itself to your home directory.
The Cut and Copy file actions and the Paste directory action allow easy copying and moving of files or entire directory trees. They work quite similarly to the functions in normal file browsers - selecting one or more files and selecting Cut or Copy will attach them to the clipboard. Navigating to another directory and selecting Paste will move or copy the file to that directory respectively.
Note that this is probably not what you want when using files under Subversion. You should instead use the Svn Cut and Svn Copy actions, which also update the repository. See Subversion.