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This page is devoted to the Orthodox File Managers (OFMs) that are also known as "Commanders". Members of this family of file managers use simple yet very powerful interface which is a generalization of Norton Commander (NC) interface.
I introduced the term "Orthodox File Managers" in 1996 with the first edition of my online book and now it seems to be more or less standard term for this category of file managers. Sometime this type of managers is called 2-pane or two panel managers but this is a superficial term as it does not reflects the importance of command line in the interface, the key distinguishing feature of this type of managers as well as the level of integration with the underling shell (in extension menu, user menu and, especially in the access to the terminal window in Unix screen style). It also hides close analogies of OFMs with such programs as XEDIT, vi and screen. All those programs has nothing to do with two panel concept despite the fact that they are pretty close to each other in key ideas and attract similar types of the users — first of all system administrators.
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The first and the main advantage is portability and the availability of public standard
Another advantage of OFM is that this is the only type of file manager that is standardized and the skills are transferable from command like to GUI and back as well as from one platform to another (for example Windows to Unix — this is an excellent way to dampen short of Unix command line for Windows users)
OFMs are not for dummies. You need to know the shell of the OS you are using fully benefit from its capabilities. That's why they are extremely popular among administrators…
The author argues that this simple classic interface offers the most efficient way to perform complex file operations, and both users and software developers deserve some help in the form of the standard and some kind of commentary about "the state of the art" of this type of file managers.
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I would like to stress that OFMs are an essential (and underutilized ) tool for system administrators, especially UNIX system administrators. Midnight Commander (MC) now seems to be the leading implementation for open source operating systems for Unix. There is also a portable Unix GUI based (X-based) version of OFM called Northern Captain and an excellent KDE-based Krusader.
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Copyright 1996-2007 by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov.
Created Jan 2, 1997. Last modified: July 24, 2007
documented on: 2007.07.28
Screenshot gentoo is a file manager written in C. It uses the GTK+ toolkit, and the two-pane concept. What makes gentoo stand out are its graphical configurability and its real cool file typing and styling system. Using the latter, gentoo identifies the type of your files and then uses the style you've defined for the type to determine how to display it in listings. The package includes a set of ~100 unique handcrafted icons, for many different types of files.
Written from scratch, using ANSI C and the GTK+ toolkit.
Aims to be 100% graphically configurable, and comes pretty close, too.
Very cool (!) file typing and -styling systems allows you to configure how files of different types are shown (with colors and icons), and what happens when you doubleclick them (spawn image viewers, music players, etc).
Includes more than 120 original pixmaps icons (16x15 pixels).
Internal support for most file operations (copy, move, rename, rename, makedir etc).
"two-pane" really means the Orthodox File Manager (OFM) Paradigm.
Things I especially like:
Preconfigured file association! Better than XNC. This is the only one that hasn't cause me shaking my head yet.
Extensively configurable. Build the look and reactions you like.
Able to grab the content of current folder. Better than XNC.
And work on the current folder content too. I always lost the first char when editing the content of current folder in rox
Folder up and Folder history.
Preconfigured "hot spot" locations.
OFM style
Things I don't like:
No virtual file systems, but the content is quickly shown, which is enough.
Left click = select. weird, and don't know how to disable it.
Not able to i18n?
Don't know why it is slow to move directories within the same volumn. Doing it of its own?
by Marco Paganini - Jul 20th 2002 18:01:20
In my old windoze days (gone are those days) I used Windows Commander and really liked it. Gentoo is the *only* stable and fully featured FM I've seen for linux that gets close to Windows Commander. I's quite fast and absurdly configurable (which is excellent). :)
My only gripes are:
Clicking on a file/directory selects it. I'd rather have another mouse button/key to do it.
I'm so used to typing "cd dir" to go there. Gentoo could intercept these keystrokes and change the directory accordingly.
A VFS for zip/tar, etc, etc including compression support (that would really rock!)
I cannot change the fonts! :((( The GTK theme fonts are always used (that would be OK in most cases, but it's not when I use anti-aliased fonts for my main theme and gentoo uses them — sloooowness)
Other than that, it's excellent.
by Emil Brink - Aug 19th 2002 15:27:39
First, thanks! I'm happy you like gentoo, and even happier you took the time to post your ideas and opinions. Here are a few comments back:
Selection is more or less GTK+ standard, which is reasonable in my opinion. Selecting things from a list with the left mouse button seems, again IMO, to be more or less world standard. Having been slightly exposed to Windows Commander recently, I kind of understand what you're saying, but I would never even had the thought otherwise. Don't expect this to change…
You could bind 'c' to the focus and clear the path, unlearn the 'd' and space, and just type the path I guess… But it seems very silly to me. Of course, I never "grew up" with file managers with integrated command lines, and still find the entire idea very weird. Again, don't expect gentoo to have an integrated shell any time soon.
I agree 100% about the VFS; it would really rock. What's stopping it is mainly a) no good VFS layer known, b) no time or energy to write one myself, and c) fear for troublesome integration, hunting down all file system accesses in gentoo could take a while.
You can change the fonts for the panes and the textview in the GTK+ RC file for gentoo, ~/.gentoogtkrc. See the README.gtkrc file for details.
> I use a Worker who seems better than gentoo.
If only we could combine the rich feature set of worker with the great looks and context dependatnt menus of gentoo, we could get the perfect file manager….
Akkord is the Advanced KDE Commander, similar to DOS Navigator and Norton Commander but with a GUI. Its main features are non-block work operations (reading directory contents, copy, etc.), a multiwindowed interface, and virtual file systems.
Download: http://home.retribution.net/products/akkord/download.php3 Homepage: http://home.retribution.net/index.php3?page=akkord
by Konstantin Zamyatin konz at mail.ru on Feb 25th 2000 04:37
X Northern Captain is a filemanager for X Windows. XNC has the same ideology as Norton Commander but also many additions and specific functions. It features a Virtual File System with support for TAR, ZIP, RAR, RPM and LHA archives, built in Xterminal, viewer for JPEG, GIF, BMP, TGA, XPM, XBM formats, editor, users menu, extensions association and more.
Binary TAR archive: Just unpack archive to '/' directory. All files from it goes to '/usr/bin' and '/usr/man/man1' directories. Configure Your environment with 'xncsetup' and press 'Save' button.
GMC (GNU Midnight Commander) is a file manager based on the terminal version of Midnight Commander, with the addition of a GNOME GUI desktop front-end. GMC can FTP, view TAR and compressed files and look into RPMs for specific files.
No good, test and removed.
It is based on GNOME, which means
It throw in a set of default GNOME desktop icons.
It uses GNOME application association for viewing files.