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DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

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Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#31

Post by wkat4242 »

jiveturkey wrote: post #11
mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

> Does anyone here recall Well, midnight commander is still actively updated even today in 2023.

Yeah mc is great. Especially if you want to select an arbitrary group of files in a huge folder.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#32

Post by dfox »

mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

> it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer

Because there was no "Windows Explorer" before Windows 95 and the "MSDOS Executive"/"File Manager" that was used before that was truly horrible and non-intuitive.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#33

Post by lelanthran »

mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

> One particular aspect that stands out to me was the dual-pane interface.

All the file managers I've used recently on my desktop support this (In Caja and the KDE one, press F3 to switch to a dual pane view).

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#34

Post by glandium »

prmoustache wrote: post #29
mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

It is funny that people mostly remember Norton Commander while it came very late in msdos history. Back in 1987 we were using Microsoft Dos Manager on our intel 8088 that was doing pretty much the same thing already, offering a dual pane. You can see it here: https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys/ext/microsoft/dosmgr... (F9 to split panes, options menu allow to change color scheme)

PC Tools was another popular option back then. I really liked its PC Shell.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#35

Post by AshamedCaptain »

krm01 wrote: post #27
behnamoh wrote: post #3

Icons used to be meaningful and convey what they did. Now it's mostly shiny fancy crap, and they all look the same. I always find it difficult to find VSCode on macOS because a lot of apps use similar colors and patterns. I tried customizing VSC's icon but it goes back to its ugly confusing default icon after each update.

I’ve designed many interfaces. Icons and use of icons is a difficult story. It used to be simpler, because many of the operations the icons would represent were digitized actions that previously had a physical component. For example: save was iconified as a diskette. Later we had upload icons being a cloud with an arrow going up to indicate ‘upload to the cloud’. Today we design Interfaces for Machine Learning softwa…

This is not really extrapolable enough to claim a trend. I am using a piece of software from the 90s that has an icon for "Load transistor switching activity history" which is frankly even more abstract. Yet most if not all desktop/office software from the 20s sill uses icons that are based on physical objects. They even use a diskette as save.

i.e. Specialized software is going to be specialized. It's not new.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#36

Post by blacklion »

mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

What do you mean by "recall"? FAR Manager (which is modern incarnation of NC) is second program I install on any new Windows system (after Firefox). All these graphical file managers (both Explorer and Finder) are unusable to me. Absence of FAR is one of the main reasons I can not bear MacOS and, no, Midnight Commander is not replacement for modern FAR.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#37

Post by masswerk »

nunobrito wrote: post #4
behnamoh wrote: post #3

Icons used to be meaningful and convey what they did. Now it's mostly shiny fancy crap, and they all look the same. I always find it difficult to find VSCode on macOS because a lot of apps use similar colors and patterns. I tried customizing VSC's icon but it goes back to its ugly confusing default icon after each update.

Or worse, icons get grouped and they removed the labels for apps when launched. Fairly awful having to scroll through the equal icons to get back into the expected terminal or file browser path. Usability has really been going down the drain to copy smartphones into the desktop.

My pet grievance is Apple's progressive transition from direct manipulation and drag-and-drop to the most evil click-and-wait-to-reveal-and-reorient-the-pointer-to-eventually-drag scheme, e.g., for proxy icons.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#39

Post by jaclaz »

mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

Technically, OFM or Orthodox File Managers, all you wanted to know and didn't dare to ask here:

https://softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml

BTW even if not strictly orthodox, the 7-zip file manager can be used in dual pane and it is very handy.

Re: DESKTOP2 – A Graphical User Interface for DOS

#40

Post by jannes »

blacklion wrote: post #36
mjsweet wrote: post #6

*DESKTOP is somewhat in the middle between MS-Windows and Norton Commander...* Does anyone here recall the intuitive nature of Norton Commander, especially in terms of file operations? This may be reaching back about three decades, so my recollection might be a bit hazy. As I recall, it was a viable alternative to Windows Explorer even during the era of Windows 3.1. One particular aspect that stands out to me was the…

What do you mean by "recall"? FAR Manager (which is modern incarnation of NC) is second program I install on any new Windows system (after Firefox). All these graphical file managers (both Explorer and Finder) are unusable to me. Absence of FAR is one of the main reasons I can not bear MacOS and, no, Midnight Commander is not replacement for modern FAR.

I use Directory Opus on Windows these days.

https://www.gpsoft.com.au/

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