{"id":4967,"date":"2013-08-07T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T07:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=4967"},"modified":"2013-08-04T10:10:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T17:10:53","slug":"from-folder-to-directory-and-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=4967","title":{"rendered":"From Folder to Directory and Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the command prompt world of DOS, folders were called directories<\/em>. Once the transition to the glorious graphical goodness of Windows was made, directories became folders<\/em>. They’re still the same thing.
\n
\nStart with a folder, window: I’ve opened my account folder, which is shown in Figure 1. To access the ugly, text-based directory for the same window, I press the Shift key, right-click in the window, and choose the command Open Command Windows Here, as shown in the Figure.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a>

Figure 1. Shift+Right-click in a folder window to see the special menu.
(Click to enbiggen.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Do that on your own computer: Open your home folder, called the user profile<\/em> folder by people at Microsoft who don’t like the well-established computer term home<\/em>. Press the Shift key, right-click in the window, choose the command Open Command Windows Here.<\/p>\n

In a few hundred nanoseconds, you’ll see the command prompt window appear. Type the DIR<\/code><\/strong> command and press the Enter key to see the text representation of the directories that appear as folders in the graphical window. Figure 2 illustrates that ugliness.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a>

Figure 2. The DOS prompt displays the Music<\/code> folder.
(Click to enbiggen.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Assuming that the command prompt window is still open, type this text at the prompt:<\/p>\n

cd music<\/code><\/strong><\/p>\n

You’ve just switched or changed directories<\/em> (cd<\/code>) to the music<\/code> directory. The new command prompt should reflect that change, with the word Music<\/code> appearing in the prompt text.<\/p>\n

To view the files stored in the Music directory, type the DIR<\/code><\/strong> command and press the Enter key.<\/p>\n

Weird, huh?<\/p>\n

To view those same files as happy icons in a folder window, type this command:<\/p>\n

explorer .<\/code><\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s the word explorer<\/code>, a space, and then a period. Press the Enter key. A folder window appears showing the contents of the Music folder.<\/p>\n

The program that displays folder windows is called Explorer<\/em>. In fact, the program’s full name is Windows Explorer, where Windows<\/em> could be the operating system’s name.<\/p>\n

No advantage exists to hopping between the graphical folder window and the stark command prompt. If you know various DOS commands, then you may find working with files at the command prompt goes more quickly. But when you need to go back and forth, you now know the secrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t be frightened! You can easily switch between the text way of looking at files and the graphical way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,15,13],"class_list":["post-4967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-dos","tag-pc","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4967"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4988,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4967\/revisions\/4988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}