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Comment by SchizoDuckie | Hacker News Reader

Total Commander. I've been using it since the first versions that came out for Windows 3.1 and it provided a smooth Windows transition from Norton Commander for DOS.

The changelog goes back all the way to 2002, but it's been there for waaay longer. ( http://ghisler.com/whatsnew.htm )

I hope he continues to make a healthy income from it. It's litterally the best piece of shareware in the world in my eyes, that i've happily bought a license for.

Super Awesome Footnote: I just found out that you can still get the version 6.5, which is every bit as stable as v8.51a, built for Windows 3.1 : http://www.ghisler.com/wcmd16.htm

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I've tried the total commander but never got used to it. I used to run norton commander and norton utilities on dos back in the day, and these days I'm still reaching for midnight commander [1] pretty regular when moving files around on my media server and such.

    apt-get install mc

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander

I've seen this program come up a few times in the last couple of years - but every time I look at it I can't see a use case that sticks out. I've looked through the FAQ and installed it and I just can't seem to get why I'd use that opposed to Windows Explorer, 7Zip, and WinSCP.

Can you share why you find it useful? Thanks!

I guess it only becomes a real power tool if you learn to navigate and harness the power of the 2 side-by-side panels by keyboard.

Long story short, let me sum up some of my favorite features:

    - Tab to switch between panels
    - Navigate with arrow keys through the files list 
      (very handy if you have it on 'brief' view, especially since you can walk 
      through whole directories with left/right arrow until you hit the '..')
    - CTRL + F1/ CTRL+F2 to select drive for the left or right panel
    - Using any type of packer (zip,arj,7z, etc) as a directory by just hitting 
      enter on it to see the files inside, view them, extract, add and remove
    - CTRL + Pagedown to navigate even into some packaged files that aren't 
      normally accessible as folders (like .msi)
    - F-Keys with a clear indicator at the bottom to move and copy files, insert 
      to select and move to the next file
    - F3 for an all you can eat file viewer that can switch to different view modes
      like HEX by pressing 1,2,3,4 and doesn't bork on large files
    - F4 launches your favorite editor
    - Hit space on a directory to compute the full size recursively 
    - ALT+F7 for find-in-files and fast file search
    - The most powerful multi-rename tool you could ever wish for in the file menu
    - Built-In FTP Client (CTRL + F) with a favorite list, queue list 
      and resume from queue list.
    - Download any random file (with resume and queue) using CTRL+N (HTTP/FTP)
    - Plugin support to enhance the thing with stuff like SFTP/FTPS support, 
      which you can open from the 'network' drive
    - Background copy for most operations (in it's own thread, and with pause)
    - Double click the file path at the top of the panel for a popup hotlist where
      you can add favorite jump-to spots
    - CTRL + Arrow key opposite to the current panel opens the folder under the 
      cursor in the opposite panel
    - CTRL + UP arrow on a folder opens it in a new tab (which you can even lock to
      persist them or have handy nav points)
    - Numpad + to select files in a folder according to a wildcard
    - Numpad * inverts currrent selection or selects all
    - Pack some files using CTRL + F5 on a selection

There's just so much goodness that this list could go on and on for way too long. Double Commander comes close on Linux, but there's no thing like TotalCMD for me when i'm on Windows.

Just out of interest, what are your thoughts on Directory Opus?

https://www.gpsoft.com.au/

I've not used Total Commander or Directory Opus much, but I figured DOpus was something you might be interested in.

I have no thoughts on DOpus other than: it looks horrible GUI-wise

Absolutely a must-use software. Been using it since 2006, never went back to Windows Explorer.

Stuff I use daily: - extremely quick copy pasting and moving between two folders - filter by extension - dir bookmarks - extremely quick compressing - easy and simple enough file diffs - command line from every folder - fast navigation using smart search of file in current dir - pretty good search within folder - viewer for text files(useful when need to read the last couple of lines from 10GB log file)

It is somewhat more/easier configurable than mc or FAR. I know you can get dozens of plugins for all these actions but totalcmd has the right amount of stuff I need and is not bloated. Been using it for almost 15 years.

I hate the Windows explorer, but WinScp is not bad. Bunch of windows are hard to work with and even slow when moving files.

It has tabs, which is great for development and quickly jumping between directories in the same window.

http://imgur.com/a/4toXv

The two panels allows me to quickly switch also in different contexts. Lots of handy hotkeys are available.

Two __girls__ windows at the same time! What more could you want.

Total Commander is an essential Windows tool.

TC ultima prime is a package with lots of useful Windows apps like Notepad++ included http://tcup.eu

My dual-panel, multi-tabbed file manager of choice has been the free Multi Commander: http://multicommander.com/

Far is also very good.

http://www.farmanager.com/index.php?l=en

Clover is a simple tabbed file explorer that I use daily. It's great for easy access to frequently used folders, and makes it a breeze to move/copy files. Found at http://ejie.me/.

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