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Cortex Cleaner — Quick Reference Cheat Sheet

⚡ 1. Top Keyboard Shortcuts

Global & Window Navigation

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+H Toggle Navigation Sidebar
Ctrl+, Open Preferences & Settings
F11 Toggle Fullscreen Mode
Alt+F4 Close Window (or Minimize to System Tray)

Nexus File Manager

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+T Open New Tab
Ctrl+W Close Current Tab
Ctrl+B Toggle Dual-Pane View
Ctrl+N Create New Folder
Ctrl+Shift+N Create New File
Ctrl+Shift+R Bulk Rename Selected Files
Ctrl+F / F3 Focus Instant Search Box
Ctrl+1 Switch to Details Table View
Ctrl+2 Switch to Icon Grid View
Ctrl+C Copy Selection to Staging Shelf
Ctrl+X Cut Selection to Staging Shelf
Ctrl+V Paste Staged Items to Active Directory
Ctrl+Z Undo Last File Operation
Ctrl+Y Redo Last File Operation
F2 Inline Rename Active File
F5 Refresh Directory
Space Quick Look File Preview
Alt+Up Go Up to Parent Folder

🗂️ 2. Staging Shelf & Transfer Workflow

[ Step 1: Accumulate ] ──> Select files across any folders & press Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X
                            (Items dock in the bottom-right Staging Shelf)
                                      │
[ Step 2: Navigate ]   ──> Freely switch tabs or browse to target folders
                                      │
[ Step 3: Paste ]      ──> Click "Paste N Items to [Folder]" or press Ctrl+V
                           (Or drag items directly out of the shelf)
                                      │
[ Step 4: Monitor ]    ──> Telemetry dock displays live speed, ETA, and progress
                           (With inline Pause / Cancel controls)

📦 3. System Cache & Tool Quick Actions

Cleaning Package Manager Caches

  1. Select Package Manager Caches from sidebar.
  2. Click Detect Package Managers (finds pip, npm, yarn, conda, etc.).
  3. Click Scan for Caches to compute cache sizes.
  4. Toggle Dry Run to preview before final deletion.
  5. Click Clean Up.

Duplicate File Elimination

  1. Select Duplicate Finder from sidebar.
  2. Add target drives or folders to scan.
  3. Fast 3-phase engine identifies bit-for-bit exact duplicates.
  4. Review groups, select older duplicates or use auto-mark, and click Remove Duplicates.

🛡️ 4. Safety Guards & Protections

  • PathGuard System: Critical system directories (C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, System Volume Information) are locked and protected against accidental removal.
  • Transaction Journaling: All file creations, renames, copies, and moves are logged in nexus_undo.py for multi-level undo/redo.
  • Windows Read-Only Auto-Clear: Automatically clears FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY flags and retries safely if temporary indexer locks occur.