Views

Show any folder as Columns, Icons, or List, and switch with one key. Sort each folder its own way, and set the text size for the whole app.

Switch between Columns, Icons, and List

Or click Appearance in the window header and pick a view under VIEW. Switching keeps your folder, selection, and filter. Strata reopens in the view you used last.

In Columns, click a folder to open it as the next column. Drag a column's right edge to resize it. When you let go, the window's other open columns match that width, and new columns open at it. Double-click the edge to fit one column to its contents.

In Icons, click Thumbnail size in the pane header and drag the slider between 32 and 256 px.

Sort a folder

• Columns and Icons: click Choose sort field in the pane header and pick Name, Size, Modified, or Type. The arrow button beside it reverses the order.
• List: click the Name, Size, Type, or Modified heading to sort by it. Click it again to reverse.

Name sorting ignores case and reads numbers by value, so File 2 comes before File 10. Folders first, in the Columns and Icons sort menu, is on by default and keeps folders ahead of files in both directions, in every view.

Keep settings per folder

Each local folder remembers the sort you choose in it and its Icons thumbnail size. Remote shares, Trash, and Recent do not. Sort ~/Downloads by Modified, descending, and only ~/Downloads changes, even after a restart. Other folders keep the default.

Once a folder has its own sort, its sort menu in Columns or Icons offers Make this the default sort and Reset to default sort. Once you move a folder's thumbnail slider off the default, the popover offers Make this the default size and Reset to default size.

Press Ctrl+, and open General. Under BROWSING you find:

• Remember sort and icon size per folder, on by default. Turn it off and the last sort you choose becomes the default for later folders.
• Default sort, a field and a direction, Name ascending at first.
• Forget all folder settings, whose Clear button returns every folder to the defaults.

Change the text size

The Appearance menu has the same buttons under TEXT SIZE; the middle one shows the current size and resets it. To type a size from 8 to 48, use Text size in Settings → Appearance. Every window follows at once.

Good to know

• In Icons and List, going back to a folder restores its selection and scroll position. In Columns, going back up selects the folder you came from.
• Group by file type in the Appearance menu groups List rows under headings such as Folder and JSON document. It works only in List.
• Per-folder values live in ~/.local/state/strata/folder-views.toml, not in settings.toml or in the folders themselves.
• A subfolder does not inherit its parent's sort or size.
• Ctrl+wheel over a PDF preview zooms the PDF instead of the text. Text size never changes thumbnail size or preview zoom.

Full detail: Returning to a visited directory in the Keyboard navigation reference.