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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

> Under Windows, I used Total Commander.

I would recommend Far for Windows users. Much more like the original Norton Commander.

https://www.farmanager.com/

This is really "in addition to total commander" as far as I'm concerned. Far is great on the CLI, but when you're not working with terminals you generally want a normal looking application. Both Far and TC are basically "two sides of the same coin", you can use either one, but using both in their respective environments makes life even better.

> Far is great on the CLI, but when you're _not_ working in the CLI you want a normal looking application.

I have Far as an icon on my desktop/shortcuts bar. I just click it and it runs. When I quit it (F10), the window goes away. Most people will not even realize it's a CLI program. What exactly would be the problem using it this way?

I never said there was a problem, I said that having _both_ vastly increases usability. If you're the kind of person who looks at a DOS era UI and goes "this is fine, what's the problem?" then there isn't one for you.

But if you're the kind of person who wants to see terminal graphics when they're doing terminal work, and a normal user interface that follows the OS conventions that every other user interface uses as well when you're doing "normal" work, then having both installed so you can run each in the context they make sense in vastly improves your computerin' life.

(And if you're the kind of person who rarely has to use the terminal (or only ever use the terminal inside a code editor, IDE, or other application that follows OS UI conventions) or literally never uses a terminal, then something that looks like a 1980's DOS application is almost certainly going to be a hard nope)

Yeah, Far actually has pretty good integration with the command line, which is a must for a good file manager - and a file manager is a very natural fit for many CLI workflows.

Why would you want it to be like Norton Commander while Total Commander is far superior?

I haven't used Total Commander, but I know Far is extremely capable. Do you know what Total Commander does that Far doesn't?

I personally picked Far as I was very used to the layout and keybindings of Norton Commander. I like to do everything with the keyboard, and didn't need to learn new keys.

Also, Far is free.

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