Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#61

Post by wonger_ » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #10

Shameless plug for my more modern, GUI alternative to Midnight Commander, https://fman.io .

I used this for a year and really liked it! The change dir by frequency (frecency?) (Ctrl+P and search), the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P and search), and immediate type-to-filter were great features. Everything felt pretty smooth and stable. I only switched because I started spending more time in the terminal, and fman was getting a tad slow on my machine.

It was also my first exposure to a solo developer trying to make income with licenses, which at the time felt annoying, but now I understand completely. Thanks for making me more productive :) such a huge upgrade from the default OS file manager.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#62

Post by overbytecode » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 2:27 PM UTC

I find NNN and Ranger a lot more ergonomic as a UX, but MC’s virtual file system is so good, the ability browse folders seamlessly whether local, remote, zip, tar, jar in the same interface etc is really useful.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#63

Post by TacticalCoder » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 2:29 PM UTC

pantulis wrote: post #31

Some colleagues believed I was some kind of Unix demigod when they were working with SunOS ksh command line and I had my own copy of mc (probably downloaded from Solaris Freeware site or something like that). There's one powerful thing that mc does and almost any other dual file manager omits: it has the concept of "pop up menus" for commonly used commands --with the option of sending the selected file(s). Also, thes…

> There's one powerful thing that mc does and almost any other dual file manager omits: it has the concept of "pop up menus" for commonly used commands

I never really used mc because once I switched to Linux I became an Emacs user but... I have fond memories of Norton Commander on my 386 PC (running DOS, before Windows 95 became a thing). I think Norton Commander was first and mc was a clone of Norton Commander (even copying the color scheme). And Norton Commander, IIRC, already had these "popup menus" (but my memory may be playing me tricks).

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#64

Post by SonOfLilit » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:16 PM UTC

oneshtein wrote: post #50

janandonly wrote: post #18

I loved using Total Commander back when I used windows. There is nothing like this for the macOS as far as I know.

Double Commander is what you are looking for: https://sourceforge.net/projects/doublecmd/files/latest/down...

DoubleCommander is really good in terms of TCMD compatibility (they run TCMD plugins!) but it's useless on a Mac. It's extremely non-native in ways that matter.

Nimble Commander (https://magnumbytes.com/) is almost 1:1 in terms of UX and does support the Mac filesystem well. Just be sure to press ^3 Tab ^3 ehe first time you open it.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#65

Post by SonOfLilit » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:19 PM UTC

I recently had to use Windows a bit and went back to Total Commander after years on a mac.

It felt amazing. "At last, my arm is complete again" level. I can't believe you could miss a file manager so much. It's one of the greatest tools you can't explain the usage of, you bust have to use it for a week.

Then I discovered that since I last checked a passable Mac clone has appeared. Nimble Commander (https://magnumbytes.com/) is almost 1:1 in terms of UX and does support the Mac filesystem well. Just be sure to press ^3 Tab ^3 the first time you open it.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#66

Post by Lutzb » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:20 PM UTC

glimshe wrote: post #42

No file manager has ever approached the productivity I had when using XTree Gold for DOS... ZTree is a modern, but commercial version.

My first DOS PC had XTG pre-installed (courtesy of my cousin). I was so fast using XTG, will check out ZTree now.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#67

Post by keep320909 » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:28 PM UTC

usrbinbash wrote: post #39

butz wrote: post #35

For users prefering GUI applications, I would like to suggest Sunflower FM, a GTK3 based dual-pane file manager: https://sunflower-fm.org/ As usual with such applications it seems to be a bit on hiatus, but maybe some developers would be interested to lend a hand?

And for users of GUIs who are (understandably) fed up with GNOME and all the GTK Stuff, I can wholeheartedly recommend Dolphin, KDEs standard filebrowser. Which isn't on Hiatus, doesn't require GTK, and has switchable Split views (aka. dual-pane), and tabs (where each tab may have its own split view).

Dolphin isa a bit useless for serious operations. It uses KIO for file operations (copy, move...), that invokes separate API call for every file, and is very slow and unreliable for large number of files.

Other file managers (Thunar in XFCE) do not have this problem.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#68

Post by jasperry » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:49 PM UTC

Honest question about two-pane file managers: I understand that dual-pane is useful when you need to see the contents of two folders for copying and syncing multiple files. But for me, that seems like a minority part of my usage. More commonly, I have multiple tabs for different projects, and within those tabs, navigation is mostly up and down the folder hierarchy within each project. Opening the source and destination folders in the panes every time I want to copy seems like more work than just copy, navigate, and paste.

Can anyone enlighten me about this? Is it just my poor organizational skills?

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#69

Post by Sakos » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

pantulis wrote: post #31

Some colleagues believed I was some kind of Unix demigod when they were working with SunOS ksh command line and I had my own copy of mc (probably downloaded from Solaris Freeware site or something like that). There's one powerful thing that mc does and almost any other dual file manager omits: it has the concept of "pop up menus" for commonly used commands --with the option of sending the selected file(s). Also, thes…

I've experimented a lot with making my own CLI programs to change how I interact with the terminal, for example wrapping things like cp and mv in a stateful way. I feel like I'd reached some form of enlightenment when I was able to do

> cp file

> z folder (which is deeply nested somewhere else)

> paste

instead of having to type everything out.

It feels to me like the possibilities of the CLI and how we interact with it have barely been explored.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#70

Post by sandworm101 » Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

jasperry wrote: post #68

Honest question about two-pane file managers: I understand that dual-pane is useful when you need to see the contents of two folders for copying and syncing multiple files. But for me, that seems like a minority part of my usage. More commonly, I have multiple tabs for different projects, and within those tabs, navigation is mostly up and down the folder hierarchy within each project. Opening the source and destinati…

If you are moving many or large files, the two-pane mode allows you to see the state of the move in real time. You can also see name conflicts more easily rather than wait for a popup. Sure, you could open up two tabs or two windows, but that is more cumbersome than a single window for the task.