QGIS Browser is available as a standalone application and as a panel in QGIS Desktop. It lets you easily navigate in your filesystem and manage geodata. You can have access to common vector files (e.g., ESRI shapefiles or MapInfo files), databases (e.g., PostGIS, Oracle, SpatiaLite or MS SQL Spatial) and OWS/WCS|WMS|WFS connections. You can also view your GRASS data (to get the data into QGIS, see Integracion GRASS SIG).
To activate QGIS Browser, right-click on QGIS toolbar and check Browser Panel or select it from View ‣ Panels or Settings ‣ Panels (kde). In the Browser panel, you can now browse in your filesystem, databases and web services and get your data into the map view with a simple drag-and-drop or double-click.
You can also open a QGIS project directly from the Browser panel by double-clicking its name or by drag-and-drop into the map view.
At the top of the panel, you find some icons that help you to:
Right-click an item in the browser tree helps you to:
You can also import files into databases or copy tables from one schema/database to another one with a simple drag-and-drop. There is a second browser panel available to avoid long scrolling while dragging. Just select the file and drag-and-drop from one panel to the other.
Figure browser 1:
It’s also possible to run the QGIS Browser as a standalone application. Like the Browser panel, the standalone Browser helps you navigate through your filesystem and manage your geodata. It also helps you preview or create them and open them in a QGIS project by drag-and-drop.
Start the QGIS browser
Figure browser 2:
In figure_browser_standalone_metadata, you can see the enhanced functionality of the standalone QGIS Browser. The Param tab provides the details of your connection-based datasets, like PostGIS or MSSQL Spatial. The Metadata tab contains general information about the file (see vectormetadatamenu). With the Preview tab, you can have a look at your files without importing them into your QGIS project. It’s also possible to preview the attributes of your files in the Attributes tab.