A Closer Look at the Home Ribbon

Open up File Explorer. Across the top of your window there should be a selection of buttons. This is the “Ribbon”. Selecting each of the “Titles” (Home, Share, View) will change which Buttons are available. This Article will be focusing on the “Home” Section. (“View” is explained in this article).

If you do not have the Ribbon showing, try clicking the “Show/Hide Ribbon” button at the top right of your window)

Now, onto the Features:

Pin to Quick Access

This button is rarely used, but can be helpful if you use a particular Folder a lot. Select a Folder, and click here, to “Pin” that Folder to the Quick Access area of the Navigation Pane.

What does that mean? At the top of the Navigation Pane (left-hand section of File Explorer) is a Section containing links to your Main Folders (Documents, Pictures, etc), and you can add other Folders here, so that they always show up, giving you Quick Access to them!

Cut/Copy/Paste

These buttons will Cut or Copy the selected Item, or Paste the contents of the Clipboard into the current location. More detail of how this works can be found in my previous Article.

Two extra features are the “Copy Path” and “Paste Shortcut” buttons.

Copy Path

Instead of Copying the actual Item you have selected, this will copy the Location of it (as displayed in the Location Bar near the top of the window).

e.g. If I select my “CTRL-X Man” picture, and click “Copy Path”, I will enter the location to the clipboard, which I can then Paste into a Document:

“C:\Users\philw\Pictures\Blog Photos\CTRLXman.jpg”

(Notice that it uses the Full Path, starting from the Drive Letter (“C:” for my main Hard Drive), rather than the truncated version used in the Location Bar)

Paste Shortcut

Again, this deals with the Location of an item rather than the Item itself. Select an item and Copy it. Move to a new Location, and Paste Shortcut to create a Link to the original Item. This does not create a  new copy, and you should notice the “Shortcut” tag on the Icon, showing that it is a Pointer, or Shortcut to the actual Item.

Here we note that the Ribbons are organised into Sections. We have just dealt with the “Clipboard” Section, as titled below the Buttons. We now move to the “Organise” Section.

Organise

Move To/Copy To

In Windows 10, Microsoft have provided yet another way of moving/copying our Files around.

Select your Item(s), and click one of these buttons. You will be presented with a list of potential Locations to choose. If you cannot see the Location you wish to use, then look at the bottom of the list, where you will find “Choose Location …”. Clicking here will present you with a Mini-Explorer, which you can use to find the desired Location.

Delete

This will Delete the selected Item. Actually, it will move it into the Recycle Bin, where it will stay until that is Emptied. This does give you a chance to retrieve Items that are accidentally deleted.

NOTE: Deleting a Folder will delete all of the contents. Any Files and/or sub-folders inside the deleted Folder will also be deleted!

Rename

By selecting an Item, and then pressing this button, you can Rename either a File or Folder.

The item’s Name will gain a Border, and highlight in blue, indicating that it is ready for you to type the new Name.

New

The “New” section deals with adding new Items. As dealt with in my previous Article, there is a button for creating a New Folder.

There is also a Menu called “New Item”, which gives a list of Items you may wish to create e.g. Word Document, Bitmap (picture) file, spreadsheet etc. As this always creates a Blank version, I find it more useful to open the appropriate Program to create a new File.

The Easy Access menu is also one I would not recommend using just yet. Familiarise yourself with how the Explorer system works first.

Open

The only useful button here is “Properties”. Select an Item, and click this, to open a new window that will display quite a  list of properties about it, including File Size, Date  Created, Modified, and Accessed, and other useful information.

Select

• “Select All” does what it says on the tin. It selects all items in the current location.
• “Select None”. Ensures that no Items are selected.
• “Invert Selection” can be occasionally useful. e.g. If I want to delete all Items apart from my CTRL-X-Man picture, I can Select CTRL-X-Man, and Invert Selection so that everything except that file are selected, and then click Delete!

ToolTips

You may have noticed that when you “hover” your mouse pointer over a button, a little box appears. These boxes are called “Tool Tips”, and give you Tips about the Tool you are thinking of using! They usually display the Name of the Button you are hovering over, the Keyboard Shortcut (if any), and a brief description of the Function. They can be very helpful for quickly looking along a Menu or Ribbon, to see what Tools are available!

Finally

So why not take another look at your Home Ribbon! You may find some features that you never knew were there!

Do you find the Ribbon Buttons easier than CTRL-keys, or right-clicking? Or are you a Keyboard Fan, and use the Mouse as little as possible? Does the F10 key get used?

Why not let people know what you prefer! Maybe you can win over some converts!