File Managers - what's your opinion?

[Calum]

there are hundreds of file managers out there, but usually i only hear people on here talking about konqueror, nautilus, explorer and ocassionally midnight commander. i never even hear mention of whatever MacOS uses as a file manager.

anyway, file managers do different things. there are far too many norton commander style ones in my opinion, but i have grown to dislike explorer clones (such as konqueror and nautilus) - unlike the commanders, i am proficient in using explorer clones, but they just don't seem too good at their job, allowing you access to the filesystem. no big deal in windows maybe, but a bigger deal in many other systems, where you often want files from a few different locations at once. i don't even know what OS/2 did for a file manager but i did hear on a website some guy saying he thought it was a lot better than the windows file manager (i suppose the one from windows 3.1) for a few reasons.

Anyway, i'm not really asking you what your preferred file manager is (although if you have one, do comment) but which features you think a file manager should have and why, and optionally, if there is a file manager that would fit the bill or perhaps if you know of a file manager that would suit somebody else's needs.

for instance i am sick of explorer clones, and in linux i don't like the idea of konqueror and nautilus having to have the kde and gnome libs installed anyway just because dependencies annoy me. now i tried a couple of commander style managers and didn't like them. they're not intuitive enough and i can't figure out how to customise them properly. now i use dfm, which is similar to earlier mac file managers, but with no menubar and a few of my favourite features missed off, like it doesn't hide dot files, and i can't figure out how to make it do so.

anybody else?

[Faust]

quote:MacOS uses as a file manager

using it now... not my favorite file manager (konqueror/xfm are better in my personal opinion..) but it does have a nice way to view folders... it like splits the fm window into 3 and displays the hierachy by putting each folders contents in a seperate window pane.  the most "senior" folder takes the left hand pane and as you drill down they fill from left to right.  Its a nice touch and it lets you move around _very_ quikly. the bar above the file windows i dislike though... theres no readily accesible "sort by," i intensely dislike file managers with inbuilt burn to cd buttons and while there is a back and  forward button I cannot for the life of me find an "up" button!  Mac users is there any way to change these things?  while im on the "preferences" subject how does one toggle off the rotating rainbow loading "thing"???

an ideal file manager should be simple, fluid and FAST, and have any more complex features accesed through right clicking.  also drag and drop should of course be quick and easy.  (by simple i mean the only buttons on the file manager bar should be up, shortcuts to the home dir and an address bar. nothing more.)  the fast part is very important to me i cannot stand slow File Managers.  i also hate gaudy or overly intricate fms, and like you Calum I despise the norton commander / midnight commander / worker genre...  a good file manager should also have *customizable buttons!* its a very nice feature in some file managers.  single click opening of files/folders is also good.

 

quote:bigger deal in many other systems, where you often want files from a few different locations at once

i havent yet seen a good way to handle this.  multiple panes in the one window each on a different folder is IMO clunky... i think tabbed browsing is an idea but then you cant drag and drop between open folders so thats right out.  the best solution i think is multiple file manager windows open at once.

on my home machine i use xfm and konqueror in that order.  xfm is nice...  konqueror, explorer "clone" or not would be *perfect* if it was simplified down to the bare minimum absolutely essential required buttons and was made to "truncate" long filenames.  nothing annoys me more than seeing huge filenames taking up too much space in konqueror!

[ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Faust ]

[Kintaro]

bash
(Suck my BALLS MUZAPHUCHA)

Actually I use Nautillus for a lot of things, and mc somtimes. There are some others I like (The KDE one).

I have a "contact" who got M$ Exploder working in WINE.

[Kintaro]

quote:Originally posted by Faust:
Any sane person can see that mass management of files is one of the few things that is clunky to perform from a shell.

Oh yes, have fun converting 1000 images in the GUI.

You are such an asswit, you could have said "The shell is not practical for an everyday user to learn" or "The shell is just not as simple" or NOT HAVE SAID ANYTHING AT ALL. But you had to open your mouth in a directed attack at me to show how "1337" you are.

[ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: X11 ]

[Faust]

theres a wine script to run explorer installed in /usr/bin i think. (wine-explorer i think... just do wine [tab].  the question is why you would want to?
i wouldnt convert 1000 images in the gui.  i am aware of gif2png etcetera as well. the im making is that for me a file manager is often more practical than typing cd x, mv y [tab] /a/b/, mv ~/*.txt ~/text_files/ over and over and over and over and over... i use fms because for me its quicker.

edit : offensive post heavily trimmed

[ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Faust ]

[psyjax]

quote:Originally posted by Faust:


using it now... not my favorite file manager (konqueror/xfm are better in my personal opinion..) but it does have a nice way to view folders... it like splits the fm window into 3 and displays the hierachy by putting each folders contents in a seperate window pane.  the most "senior" folder takes the left hand pane and as you drill down they fill from left to right.  Its a nice touch and it lets you move around _very_ quikly. the bar above the file windows i dislike though... theres no readily accesible "sort by," i intensely dislike file managers with inbuilt burn to cd buttons and while there is a back and  forward button I cannot for the life of me find an "up" button!  Mac users is there any way to change these things?  while im on the "preferences" subject how does one toggle off the rotating rainbow loading "thing"???

an ideal file manager should be simple, fluid and FAST, and have any more complex features accesed through right clicking.  also drag and drop should of course be quick and easy.  (by simple i mean the only buttons on the file manager bar should be up, shortcuts to the home dir and an address bar. nothing more.)  the fast part is very important to me i cannot stand slow File Managers.  i also hate gaudy or overly intricate fms, and like you Calum I despise the norton commander / midnight commander / worker genre...  a good file manager should also have *customizable buttons!* its a very nice feature in some file managers.  single click opening of files/folders is also good.

[ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Faust ]

Faust,

In the Finder, click on the finder menu and select preffrences. Also, click on the view menu, and select view options. Also, you can click on the Apple Menu and select System preffrences. Each of these lead to several options for altering the way the GUI FMS works.

As for being able to sort by name etc. Simply click on the bar in whichever windw you are in, for example, where it says "date modified" click on that bar and everything is auto-sorted by date etc. If your a menu man you can also sort it thrugh the view menu.

The long button at the top right of every window hides teh navigation bar. The buttons on the Nav. bar can also be draged off (poof) and replaced with others. Selecting "open folders in new windows" from Finder->prefrences will open each folder in a new window (my personal way of doing things.)

The three little buttons in the nav bar that look like some squares, a bunch of lines, and some boxes, these togle between colums view, icon view, and text view.

batch file management can be achived thrugh the terminal     or the shift key    

As for the spinny rainbow wheel, you can go to www.resexcellence.com, for ways of "moding" it, as well as other usefull hacks and mods for OSX.

EDIT: Also, for alternate OSX file managers dig in:

http://osx.hyperjeff.net/

There are a few OSS alternatives.

[ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: psyjax: plain 'ol psyjax ]

[Faust]

Thanks psyjax, i should probably have looked harder before criticising instead of being like a windows user seeing linux for the first five seconds and declaring "it cant do this"   :rolleyes:  [goes red]

The third "window panes" view i love so i'll stick with that, and i also especially like the ability to hide the menu bar... it gives back a lot of screen space.

the rainbow wheel "mod" url wont load so i'll google for it... i dont think the admins would like me installing s/w on public computers anyway.  

i would also like to unreservedly apogize to X11 for what was effectively a "pre emptive flame."  he is obviously entitled to both use whatever file managers or shells he likes and he has a democratic right to express that opinion. the post will be deleted.

[Faust]

on first impressions id have to say rpminator looks pretty cool...

[Calum]

one thing i kind of like with file managers is their compatibility with each other. older versions of nautilus and konqueror couldn't drag and drop between each other i found (nautilus would just crash) and the same happens when dragging and dropping from dfm to konqueror, and i bet most others BUT nautilus and konqueror now drag and drop mostly okay between the two, and wonder of wonders, the awful xftree (a 'commander' from hell) is drag/drop compatible with konqueror also! one bonus mark for that. i am hoping to try out rox which appears to be a desktop environment built around a file manager, and seems a lot more mature than dfm, but i haven't tried it so i can't comment. what is this rpminator btw?