Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

klimer.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 99 posts

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#71

Post by jasperry »

sandworm101 wrote: post #70
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.

I agree with that. I guess my question is: do you always use two panes to copy? And does your file manager have something like tabs for different contexts where you would not necessarily be moving files between them?

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#72

Post by sandworm101 »

jasperry wrote: post #71
sandworm101 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with that. I guess my question is: do you always use two panes to copy? And does your file manager have something like tabs for different contexts where you would not necessarily be moving files between them?

Moving a few files, no. But a professional move, say something that is going to take more than 30 minutes due to speed/size issues, yes i would use a two-pane tool. Another case would be if the destination had a dynamic ammount of free space, such as to a running server. I would use two panes so i could abort before filling the destination.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#73

Post by tangus »

HackerThemAll wrote: post #53
CTOSian wrote: post #30

some other shortcut: ALT+. -> hide/unhide dot files/directories other dualpane -way faster file operations eg like copy/move than mc- is the Worker http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/index.html (Amiga `directory opus` look like)

Worker, being a graphical tool, is unusable over a SSH connection or where only a text terminal is available.

It's usable over a SSH connection with X forwarding tho. It all depends on the quality of your connection.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#74

Post by red_admiral »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #63
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…

Yes, to the point that `mc` is wordplay on `nc`.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#75

Post by bakoo »

CTOSian wrote: post #30

some other shortcut: ALT+. -> hide/unhide dot files/directories other dualpane -way faster file operations eg like copy/move than mc- is the Worker http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/index.html (Amiga `directory opus` look like)

Directory Opus was great back in the day, remember the joy of binding a ton of scripts and cli and gui apps to various buttons.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#76

Post by woobar »

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…

When I don't need to copy files even when navigating in a single panel (and just ignoring content of the second one) still have advantages.

- I get a free ls when I navigate directory structure, and with the keyboard shortcuts I can move much faster.

- If the panel is ordered by time the moment I open the folder I see most recent files (in some cases I only care about recent files when opening a folder). If ordered by size you see your biggest files first, etc. And all of this is stateful, you don't need to run a command to identify biggest/latest file, do something with it and then go back to check what as the second biggest/latest file.

- it is easier to check content of the file or an archive

- two panels also work seamlessly with ssh/ftp/archives/etc. You don't need to remember separate commands to copy files from other sources, you will use exactly same pattern for navigating and copying files.

I also understand that people who mastered shell don't see this as a big advantage. But it really helps when jumping between mac/nix/windows.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#77

Post by pcbouman »

jasperry wrote: post #71
sandworm101 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with that. I guess my question is: do you always use two panes to copy? And does your file manager have something like tabs for different contexts where you would not necessarily be moving files between them?

When you hit F5 (copy) or F6 (move) you typically get a dialog with the destination of the action where the other pane is pre-entered as a default so can just hit Return to start, but which you can also override by typing something before hitting Return. You can type whatever relative or absolute destination you want without having to navigate there explicitly in the other pane. For up/down one directory I personally type .. or the child-directory, if the destination is further away it is often more convenient to navigate there in the other pane.

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#78

Post by JNRowe »

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…

Well, you don't have to use the two pane mode if you don't want anyway. You can switch to single pane mode, use the second pane for file info, use the second pane as a directory tree in the manner of a "regular" single pane explorer, etc.

To perform your "copy, navigate, paste" task while in mc's single pane mode you could either:

a) tag files, pop open the second pane temporarily, navigate and copy.

b) tag files, swap the panes in the background, navigate and copy.

c) tag files, use the bindings to copy them to the inbuilt command line, navigate and copy. Using the "quick cd" dialog would probably speed this up.

d) any of the above with inverted target and source movement.

e) probably a thousand other more sensible ways than the three or cheat-y six I just thought of ;)

Re: Use Midnight Commander like a pro (2015)

#79

Post by jackthetab »

Sakos wrote: post #69
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…

Code? Detailed explanation of possibilities?
Post reply on HN