Folder Pane
The Folder Pane lists the contents of the Current Folder, and shows a preview and more details about the currently-selected folder or file.
- In the Standard Layout, the Folder Pane is below the Folder Columns and Navigation Pane. You can select files or folders in the Folder Pane by clicking on a folder or file in either the Current Folder Column or the Folder Pane.
- In the Columns Layout, the Folder Pane is the rightmost folder column, so that's the only place you can select folders or files.
- You can refresh the item display by pressing F5, Ctrl+R, or select "Refresh everything" in the menu that pops up when you click the
button in the Drives Group. - You can choose from a number of different File Views, allowing you to hide some columns, show others, change the order and widths of columns, how icons or thumbnails are displayed, which columns are hidden when the Browser isn't wide enough to show them all, and so on. You can create as many File Views as you wish using the File View Designer.
Folder Pane Toolbar
Sort files: Click to get a list of sorting options. This button duplicates the action of the Sorting Columns arrows (see below), but it's needed for the Grid View, which doesn't have any columns.
Change file view: Click to be presented with a variety of File Views. One Commander remembers which File View Design you select for each folder. One Commander comes with a variety of File Views, and you can edit any of them or add to the list using the File View Designer.
Creates new file from template: (Ctrl+N) See here for more.
Creates new folder (Ctrl+Shift+N)
Creates a note in current folder: (Alt+N) See below under "Note/To Do".
Clipboard paste: The equivalent of Ctrl+V. If the Clipboard contains text, One Commander creates a text file with the default name "<date> <time>.txt".
Main item display
The various properties of items are show in a series of columns which you can select using the File View Designer. In addition to the ones familiar to Windows, there's a column showing in "hot/cold" color-coded form the age of the item, i.e. the time that has elapsed since the item was last modified. You can adjust the colors in Settings > General. There's a more complete explanation of how the age display works there, under Item Properties: click the 
button at top right of the pane.
Long file names
Long file names are often too long to be seen fully in the Name column. They can be seen in full:
- In the Details Pane.
- By pressing F7, which toggles the other columns on and off.
Sorting columns
Either:
- Click the Sort files button
- Each column has a pair of arrows at the top
which sort the items on display in each of two directions (e.g. A-Z or Z-A). Hover the cursor over the arrows to see what they do. The arrow in bold shows the current sort order.
- For size, only files are sorted. Sorting files by size only works if the "Folders on Top" toggle (see below) is set so that folders are listed at the top.
- If you prefer folders always to be sorted by name, go to Settings > View and check "Sort folders by name always". With this checked, only files are affected by the sort order selected by clicking a sort arrow.
- You can change the default sort order for columns at Settings > View.
- Folders on Top toggle: Press
to sort files and folders so that folders are either listed first, or listed with files in the order specified by the sort arrows for properties like file name, type, date etc. This setting is remembered for each folder. You can set the defaut for this behavior at Settings > View.
Metadata display
Some metadata is shown to the right of the file name if the Browser is wide enough. For example, for image files the size of the image in pixels is shown:
Another example: the metadata for document files shows the number of pages in the document (e.g. 
; these files are on OneDrive, and the 
icon shows that they are always on the local machine and synced with the server):
In the Thumbs+Details View (click the 
button on the Folder Pane Toolbar — see above) the metadata is shown in the second line for each file:
You can get One Commander to show text excerpts from a variety of file types specified in Settings > Preview:
Filtering folders and files
Start typing characters in the path name you are looking for:
- The first key you press shows only items beginning with that letter
- If you type two or more letters, all items in the Current Folder Pane containing that text will be shown
- Displaying a particular file type: Begin typing with a period. For example, ".pdf" will display only .pdf files.
- Cancel the filter by Backspace-deleting the characters you've typed, or clicking the icon to the right of the filter:
To create a new folder, file, or note in the Folder Pane
Method 1: Click on one of the icons in the Folder Pane Toolbar:
Method 2: Right-click on the header for the folder pane and select from the list (File, Folder, or Note) that appears.
Note/To Do
You can add as many Notes or ToDo items as you like to the files in the Current Folder Pane. Hit Alt+N or click 
in the Folder Pane Toolbar, and a small editing window pops up. Up to four lines of text appear in the Name column, but the full text can be seen in the File Preview below:
Notes/ToDos can be edited by double-clicking on the Note/ToDo, and deleted in the same way as any other file. They are simple text files with the extension ".2do".
You can mark Notes/ToDos as completed by clicking in the Note/ToDo's checkbox: 
. This also changes the file extension to ".2dx".
Creating a background image for a Folder Pane
If One Commander finds one of the following files in any folder:
cover.jpg, folder.jpg, front.jpg, background.jpg, poster.jpg
it will show that image as a background for that folder. An example might be an album cover image. If it doesn't work, check "Show folder background image" in Settings > View.
Backlinks:
2. Quick introductory guide:3. The Browsers and Layouts
2. Quick introductory guide:4. Folder columns
2. Quick introductory guide:5. Basic folder and file operations
2. Quick introductory guide:8. Settings
2. Quick introductory guide:9. Other useful features
3. Full reference guide:Browser Tabs
3. Full reference guide:File View Designer
3. Full reference guide:File Views
3. Full reference guide:Settings:Columns
3. Full reference guide:Settings:View