hackstacking

Lost art of the two paned file manager

07.19.07 - 07:43pm

First there was Norton Commander, a feature rich addition to the command line. Then copy cats like the prolific Midnight Commander were released in the wild. Then came windows explorer and the finder, and people seemed to forget how feature rich and productive a two paned approach can be.

Two paned file managers add a number of productivity advantages over the built in bunch. The most productive, for me at least, is the wealth of keyboard shortcuts, that have stayed relatively constant throughout time and product lines. In most two paned managers: tab to switch panes, F5 copy, F6 move, F7 mkdir, F8 del etc. Other shortcuts change from product to product, but most offer keyboard shortcuts to enter a path, multi-select files, shell out, and other various commands. Most two paned managers also make it very simple to open a pane to a remote file system, either through FTP, SSH, or samba (windows shares).

I’ve settled on a two pane file manager in osx, windows, and linux. I’ve tried more then a few, but certainly not all of them. Below are five that I have or do use extensively, and think are worth checking out.

mc/Midnight Commander (*nix,osx,windows)

I have mc on most of my machines, even though I rarely use it. Although it’s fantastically capable, it’s also very aged. It runs in a *nix shell, so compiling/installing on linux and osx is cake. On windows you could install a ported version, or I use the cygwin version. mc is a classic and should be in everyone’s toolbox.

forklift (osx $29.95)

Forklift is a new favorite of mine. Although it’s not as feature rich as most other two paned managers, it does have most of the important features. What it lacks in features it makes up for in look and feel, and responsiveness. Forklift is fast, very fast. Forklift has taken over most of my file management duties.

muCommander (*nix, osx, windows)

muCommander is an open source java based two paned commander, with a very full suite of features. muCommander supports pretty much every feature imaginable for a file manager with a very well thought out interface. muCommander development is very active, and well worth checking out. My only complaint with muCommander is it’s responsiveness, which is probably due to it being a java app. It’s not slow, but it’s not as responsive as native options.

FreeCommander (windows)

FreeCommander is a closed source freeware commander for windows. It’s very full featured, and very fast. FreeCommander development is not as active as muCommander, but it’s quite stable, and my preferred file manager on Windows. The UI is a bit clunky at times, but well worth the download.

GnomeCommander (*nix)

GnomeCommander is an open source X based two paned manager. GnomeCommander stays very close to the commander roots, and is very full featured. The UI is basic yet functional, and slightly customizable. GnomeCommander also supports plugins, although I haven’t found many, nor the use for any. GnomeCommander is very fast, and a pleasure to use on my ubuntu desktop, which is comprised of older hardware.

There are tons of other options out there for file managers, and I certainly haven’t tried all of them, but these are four that I have used pretty extensively and been very happy with, and except for ForkLift are all free.

Category: tools | Tags: filemanager, linux, osx, twopaned, windows