… Indeed !
I was playing around with Konqueror’s options, and found that it supports a couple of interesting protocols. As you may already know, Konqueror is KDE’s default browser, and also serves as the KDE’s file browser, a la explorer.exe under Windows (even if it hides a bit behind iexplore.exe, which is really Internet Explorer, but that’s not the point here).
Of course, it supports the HTTP protocol and the FTP protocol for example (Internet stuff), and the file protocol which means it browses the files on your local hard drive. But there are other ones. Do you remember about the about: (haha) protocol in Internet Explorer, Netscape or Firefox ? Konqueror has its own ones, and some of them are more interesting than the about protocol actually. Here’s a list I’ve gathered from the Configuration / Configure Konqueror / Meta-informations / Protocol Selection menu in Konqueror.
Internet Protocols: fish, imap, imaps, invitation, ldap, ldaps, mac, nfs, nntp, nntps, nxfish, pop3, pop3s, print, printdb, sftp, sieve, smb, smtp, smtps, webdav, webdavs
Local Protocols: applications, ar, audiocd, camera, devices, file, floppy, fonts, home, lan, man, mbox, media, programs, remote, rlan, settings, system, tar, trash, zeroconf, zip
Wow.
To use a protocol, simply enter its name in the address bar, followed by a :/, and parameters. For example, if you want to use http, you enter http://www.google.com, where www.google.com is the parameter.
Now, a couple of examples I’ve tested:
print:/ This will show you something like the printers section of the config panel of Windows. You can add/del printers, add/del jobs…
smb://192.168.0.147 This will work with Windows computers or Linux Samba servers : this is to access other computers’ files and/or printers, shared via the standard Windows protocol (named SMB, hence the name Samba, a free implementation under Linux). 192.168.0.147 would be the IP of the Windows or Linux Samba server.
nntp(s) is the news protocol, smtp(s) pop3(s) and imap(s) are mailing protocols… you use Thunderbird for these anyway, right? :)
Other random tests:
applications:/ This will show the content of the K menu !
man:/modprobe How great ! You were fed up with these crappy console mans, typing “q” to quit, right? :) (I’m not thinking of anyone, really !) Then this is definitely for you :)
info:/ls Same as man (the info command also exists on the console), but often better, you may want to use this one also! (If it’s available for what you’re looking for, that is.)
zip:/path/to/file.zip Will show the contents of the zip file. No more 3rd party apps needed ! Same goes for tar.
devices:/ This will show you the different storage devices connected to your computer, network shares included.
fonts:/ A list of the installed system fonts, and personal fonts.
home:/ A list of the different home directories associated to users of the computer.
… Well, just try by yourself all the others! :)