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Data Browser

General

The Data Browser is the main window within the RDMS web portal that can be used for navigating through your files and execute different tasks. It is the initial window that is presented to you when you log into the web portal, but it can be accessed at any time by hitting the button on the left-sided navigation panel.

When within the Data Browser, the / buttons in the navigation panel can be used to hide or reveal the directory browser that allows you to access the different storage areas that are available for your in the RDMS.

These are the different areas that can be accessed from the directory overview in the Data Browser:

Starred (): Starred files and folders are marked by the owner. It is an easy way of sorting the most used files and folders of that moment. Any file or folder that you have access to can be selected and set as a starred file or the folder.
Projects (): Shows your available RDMS projects. Please refer to the Projects section of the wiki to get more information about projects in the RDMS.
Team drives (): Shows your available RDMS Team Drives. Please refer to the Team Drive section of the wiki to get more information about projects in the RDMS.
Shared (): Shows an overview of the available RDMS locations that other users shared with you. This overview can be used for easy and fast navigation to a shared location.
Bin (): Shows the content of your bin which contains the files and folders that you deleted. You can restore data from the bin.
My folder (): This is your personal home location in the RDMS.

Data Browser Functions

As initially mentioned, different tasks can be executed directly from the Data Browser. For example, you can use the button on the top-right corner that reveals a menu that allows to create new folders, upload files, move data, or link folders:

You can also click on a file/folder in your Data Browser to reveal a context menu that allows you to execute more tasks (e.g. assigning permissions on the selected object):

Preview Data

The context menu in the data browser also allows you to preview the content of certain files. So far, the RDMS support the preview of the following file formats:

Type File Extensions Notes
Image File *.apng, *.bmp, *.gif, *.jpg, *.jpeg, *.png, *.svg Displays preview of the image
Documents *.pdf Opens PDF in Browser. Printing/Download possible from there.
Text-based *.csv, *.html, *.json, *.txt, *.xml Displays content of text file. Content can be copied from here as well.
Other *.tar Displays the content of the tar bundle.

To preview the content of a file (here a tar archive), open the context menu by right-clicking on the file that should be previewed. Then select, the Open In.. option from the context menus which presents you with different options to open the respective file. Here you also find the preview option which allows to preview either on the left side of the current data browser window or to preview the selected file in a new browser tab.

In this example case where a tar archive was selected for preview, its content is shown on the right side of the data browser.

Notes:

  • The preview function is limited to files with a maximum size of 500 MB.
  • In the future, we will add more data formats that can be previewed. If you need a certain preview function, please contact rdms-support@rug.nl with your request.

Using Hotkeys

Within the Data Browser different hotkeys are implemented which can be used to execute common data operations in a convenient way. The hotkeys in the Data browser are designed to be as close as possible to hotkeys used on other operating systems. As such, the basic hotkey combinations shift + up, shift + down, and shift + click are available to select multiple files/folders. The ctrl + click combination also works like expected from your operating system.

Additional hotkey functions that are currently implemented can be accessed by typing on your keyboard while in the Data browser:

  • dbn: Create a new collection (folder)
  • dbu: Upload a new data object (file)
  • dbm: Move the selected objects or collections
  • dbl: Link a collection
  • ctrl + h: Display the help window

Notes:

  • The listed hotkeys are only available in the Data browser, with the exception of the ctrl + h hotkey combination, which is available on the entire web portal.
  • For Mac users, the ctrl key is replaced by the command key. The hotkeys then function in the same way as described above.