# File Filters Options

This section describes the options presented under the File Filters Tab of the preferences dialogue.

## Filters

Show hidden files or folders

  Enables the display of hidden files and folders, also known as dot files.

Show parent folder

  Enables the display of the parent folder as a double dot in the directories views.

Case sensitive sort

  Files and folders are sorted such that upper case letters occur before lower case letters.

  Enabled result: A, B, C, a, b, c

  Disabled result: A, a, B, b, C, c
Natural sort order

  Files and folders are sorted with the dot '.' treated as a special case, so the order is e.g. "event.c" "event.h" "eventgenerator.c". Also, files containing numbers are sorted as "file1" "file5" "file10".

  If this option is selected and a standard numerical sort is required and the files are in a single folder, a workaround is to put the files in a temporary collection and select Sort By Path
Disable file extension checks

  During rename operations, allows files to be renamed to a different extension with no warning issued.

Disable file filtering

  Enable this to allow Geeqie to list all files, even those that do not contain images.

## Grouping sidecar extensions

This field defines which extensions will lead to file grouping. Grouped files will appear as a single entry in file views. This is useful, for example, when browsing directories containing two files for the same image (such as raw+jpeg files generated by some cameras).

The group is represented by the first extension in the list for which a file exists.

Each extension should include the starting dot and should be separated by a semi-colon from following entries. It is possible to use wild-cards corresponding to entries in the File Types Class below:

%unknown
  expands to all files listed in class Unknown ,
%image
  expands to all files listed in class Image ,
%raw
  expands to all files listed in class RAW Image
%meta
  expands to all files listed in class Metadata

## File types

This list contains the image formats that are understood by Geeqie. To disable a specific file type from being displayed, uncheck it's corresponding check-box. Filters can be edited by first selecting the line containing the item to be changed, then clicking the filter or description field, making any changes, then pressing `Enter` ; press `Escape` to cancel an active edit.

Unlike all other options in the dialogue, filter list changes are applied immediately.

The table consists of:

Enabled
  Whether or not the filter is used.
Filter
  List of extensions this filter applies to, separated by a ; . Each extension must be preceded by a dot.
Description
  Brief description. This is not used elsewhere.
Class
  This may be used to define sets of file types, for use in the Grouping function described above. The drop-down list has 7 entries:
  - Unknown
  - Image
  - RAW Image
  - Metadata
  - Video
  - Collection
  - Document
  - Archive (.zip, .rar etc.)
Writable
  If this option is checked, Geeqie will try to write metadata to the image file itself. This, and the following option, are mutually exclusive.
Sidecar is allowed
  If this option is checked, Geeqie will try to write metadata to a sidecar file associated with the image. This, and the previous option, are mutually exclusive.

Add
  Adds a new blank line to the filter list, change the parameters to match the desired file type.

Remove
  Removes the selected line from the filter list.

Defaults
  Resets the filter list to the default values, discarding any customizations made by the user.

Column Sorting
  Columns other than Filter can be sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on the column header.

Filter Search
  A search of the file extensions listed in the Filter column can be initiated either by typing Ctrl + F or by pressing any alpha-numeric key when the File Types table has focus.