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GNU Midnight Commander

midnight-commander.org

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Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#271

Post by lozf »

dayvster wrote: post #170
kouteiheika wrote: post #15

I love Midnight Commander so much; I install it on every system I use. It's so much more efficient/pleasant when in comes to navigating the filesystem and doing basic operations, especially when you learn the shortcuts and learn how to use it along with other command-line tools (hint: if you press Ctrl+O in MC it will switch to a normal shell command prompt it the directory you're in, and you can press Ctrl+O again t…

My only issue with it is that it does not come with vim keybindings by default, I love to have consistent keybindings across my system / TUI tools

You might like Yazi[0], although the layout is more "modern" (like ranger / nnn etc.) uses tabs for multiple different views.

[0]: https://yazi-rs.github.io/

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#272

Post by professoretc »

pimeys wrote: post #43
kouteiheika wrote: post #15

I love Midnight Commander so much; I install it on every system I use. It's so much more efficient/pleasant when in comes to navigating the filesystem and doing basic operations, especially when you learn the shortcuts and learn how to use it along with other command-line tools (hint: if you press Ctrl+O in MC it will switch to a normal shell command prompt it the directory you're in, and you can press Ctrl+O again t…

I use it especially when moving files around in my NAS and it is awesome. For GUI file managers, I have to say you can't get better than Dolphin. It has an integrated shell for the current directory, and you can split the view. It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. For local things the combination of Dolphin and it's shell is unbeatable.

I miss TkDesk, which I discovered many years ago when I was first trying Linux, partly because it supports unlimited splits, not just two. In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, when navigating to a subdirectory the default was just to open it in a new split. You ended up with splits containing the full path from wherever you started to your eventual subdirectory (you could scroll the view of splits horizontally once there got to be too many).

https://tkdesk.sourceforge.net/

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#273

Post by tremon »

zahlman wrote: post #233
arevno wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the most unergonomic keys mandating moving your hands off their resting place Touch typists always have to get their dig in. I've been using vim for 5 years now and still use up/dn/lf/rt - it's easier to find in a tactile manner with the right keyboard and makes MUCH more sense to the brain than hjkl. It's like 80ms travel, worst case. Even the gaming community got this more correct with wasd, in terms of key posit…

Even the gaming community got this more correct with wasd esdf would be better (using stronger fingers). I don't like hjkl either and would use ijkl if I were non-lazy enough to figure out rebinding. I can remember many games for the Apple ][ used ijkm.

Nobody has their index finger on the F when using wasd navigation. The reason wasd was chosen is because of the position of ctrl, alt and space (also common in games): with the hand on esdf, the ctrl and alt keys are quite hard to reach; but with the index finger on the D, the thumb can easily switch between alt and space, and the pinky can access ctrl and shift.

btw this is why vi used hjkl for navigation: https://catonmat.net/why-vim-uses-hjkl-as-arrow-keys

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#274

Post by royskee »

reaperducer wrote: post #224
thom wrote: post #85

I still have great affection for Midnight Commander, like Norton Commander before it. I used to use the latter to initiate a parallel cable connection to my brother's computer for Doom deathmatches, pretty cool for a file manager. For no good reason, here's a screenshot of both of them running side by side on an iPad, which is a thing you can apparently do these days: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYRYTq6WUAAt_1t?forma…

9%[___) Dude, plug that thing in!

I guess you're not familiar with the iconography, but the little lightning bolt symbol in the battery icon means it is plugged in! (edit: I tried to reproduce your "ASCII art" with unicode lightning bolt but the formatting didn't survive)

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#275

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

xyzelement wrote: post #264

Anytime I see this stuff, I get nostalgic for Norton Commander (it was HUGE in the USSR when I was a kid learning computers in the late 80s and early 90s) But somehow the reality of how I - and I think most people - use computers today is very different. I don't find myself navigating a shallow directory hierarchy and making file operations too often. A part of it is that all the stuff is in the cloud or at least con…

On windows I use mc to navigate around the WSL-2 file system.

On linux I use it to manage remote servers without a window manager (by design, because I don't need one).

I also use it to pass files between my laptops over ssh, between windows and/or linux.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#276

Post by overfeed »

baumschubser wrote: post #112
overfeed wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. I wish mc could browse remote URLs, and I'm tempted to author an mc clone in Go to address this particular pain-point. Maybe some day handcrafting bespoke rsync/rclone commands will frustrate me enough to motivate me.

In the Left/Right menu in mc, you can select FTP, SFTP and SSH URLs to browse. Is this not what you mean?

That is what I mean. Glad to hear mc supports this already!

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#277

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

vsviridov wrote: post #21

I've been using `mc` for decades... In fact, in my early professional days as a software dev, I've written entire systems with PHP using `mcedit` (the built-in editor), because I didn't know `vim` then, and `mcedit` had syntax highlighting...

Wait, what? I've never seen syntax highlighting in mcedit. I'd be looking predominantly at Prolog files to be honest but those normally have a .pl extension so I should at least be seeing Perl-like highlights?

(pun totally coincidental)

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#278

Post by zahlman »

tremon wrote: post #273
zahlman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the gaming community got this more correct with wasd esdf would be better (using stronger fingers). I don't like hjkl either and would use ijkl if I were non-lazy enough to figure out rebinding. I can remember many games for the Apple ][ used ijkm.

Nobody has their index finger on the F when using wasd navigation. The reason wasd was chosen is because of the position of ctrl, alt and space (also common in games): with the hand on esdf, the ctrl and alt keys are quite hard to reach; but with the index finger on the D, the thumb can easily switch between alt and space, and the pinky can access ctrl and shift. btw this is why vi used hjkl for navigation: https://c…

> Nobody has their index finger on the F when using wasd navigation.

Yes, but they would while editing text, and the context of this was the idea of drawing inspiration from other control systems for a text editor UI.

The choice of key labeling on that terminal implies that there was a pre-existing convention, but the article doesn't go into any detail about that.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#279

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #161
penetrarthur wrote: post #93

Total Commander is still the first thing I install on every fresh Windows install for the last 20 or so years. Copy/move/delete etc keys are the same as in mc.

The best are the youtube movies that try to explain to amateurs how to use the horrible built in windows file manager WITH A MOUSE!.... while there is total commander.

Windows Explorer? It's not that bad. Granted, I only ever use it with the keyboard. But then you can tile two windows side-by-side (or four) and it's a bit like a commander of sorts.

The only time I ever have to use the mouse in WE is when I try to move to the Quick Access side-bar: sometimes focus gets lost somewhere around all the bloody menus I never use and I can't place it where I want it. It's weird and I'm not describing it clearly because it happens only occasionally and I don't understand exactly how.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#280

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

iLemming wrote: post #253
internet_points wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you need a new username =P

Why? Vim is not just a concrete set of products. It's also an idea. One can perfectly remain a die-hard vimmer and use Emacs. That's a fundamental truth unrecognized only by those who misunderstand either Vim or Emacs, or both.

I have reasons to believe the comment above was tongue-in-cheek.

Specifically I believe this:

=P

Is a tongue-in-cheek emoticon, but I can see how it can be mistaken for a mobius strip emoticon.

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