While GNOMEs nautilus file manager has seen compelling improvements in its latest version, theres always room for alternatives. eWEEK Labs took one such competing GNU Network Object Model Environment file manager, called Velocity, for a spin, and we were impressed with its potential.
Velocity, written by developer Kyle Davis, is available for free download at velocity.sourceforge.net. We tested it in a 0.1 beta release and were impressed with its flexible configuration options. We could configure our file view profiles more closely than were accustomed to with Nautilus, and we liked having a Windows-style “send-to” option in the context menu.
We could set up Velocity to draw our desktop, as with Nautilus, thereby extending our view profile options beyond the Velocity file manager windows to the desktop.
Velocity is still early along in its development, and a number of its features remain unimplemented. In any case, Velocity performed stably for us. Although it may not grow into a total replacement for Nautilus, Velocity can serve as an extra tool in ones file management chest.