Double Commander – Changes in version 1.1.0 | Hacker News Reader

Double Commander – Changes in version 1.1.0

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113 pointsniel166 comments

In my experience this is the best non TUI orthodox file commander available on *nix machines.

The amount of dedication that was poured into it to make it as close to TotalCommander as possible is nothing sort of amazing.

IMO it's the best (or one of the best) for Windows as well - because it's so feature rich and is free and open source in contrary to TC.

I agree, I use it on Windows and it’s an amazing piece of software.

Freepascal/Lazarus with some compression code in C.

how can it be one of the best if it's not even good? For example, it lacks a must have undo feature (just like TC), so you can't easily recover from accidentally deleting the wrong selection of files

Just like when I burn my pancakes. I so wish I could CTRL+Z IRL. Those files are gone. Adios. Please don't tell me you use "Recycle Bin".

Of course I use recycle bin. Why wouldn't I use a great tool for the job? It would be negligent not to, when it or similar is available on the OS I'm using.

Even this tool uses recycle bin. It may not have a ctrl-z to undo a delete, but it doesn't permanently delete unless explicitly requested.

Comparing pancakes to file management is an apples to oranges comparison.

Just like the garbage company in IRL... You place it in the recycle bin, but at the end of the day, it all ends up in /dev/null anyway...

These days almost every file I touch is either downloaded from somewhere or, if I wrote it, pushed to a git repo. Recycle bin is rendered useless.

I won't tell you to use the recycle bin if you don't want to, but DC supports deleting to the recycle bin if you're so inclined (Del/F8 deletes to recycle bin, you have to press Shift for "hard" delete)...

If only there were a difference between the physical world and a digitalworld..

(and of course I use recycle bin, it'd be dumb not to)

What alternative do you suggest, If I may ask without any intent of rhetoric?

Directory Opus is the best file manager on Windows

I think the target audience for orthodox file managers are people that accept, or can live with, the consequences of irreversible file operations.

the target audience can continue to live dangerously, doesn't mean the app can't add this basic feature to be a contender

I am fascinated by your position. Why would it be a must-have operation? What's wrong with tools that take you as close to the machine as possible? We used to have tools that could manipulate the FAT on disk directly readily available!

And, IIRC, both TC + DC support deleting to the recycling bin. I know they do, because it's one of the first options I disable when setting them up on a new computer.

Because it significantly improves UI in the core area of file management (and the issue is undo, not just recycle bin, and it also covers e.g. renames etc that good file managers have)

How does undo move you far away from your machine? Any why are you using a GUI tool instead of living in the terminal, terminals are closer to the machine!

Think twice click once. I suggest you use that maxima or one day you will accidently delete yourself. And this is inreversal operation. ;)

I take it you consider most UNIX utilities (cp, rm, etc) to be bad because they lack an undo?

Rm has needed an option "do what i mean, not what i say" [1] from some time. /s

[1] https://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/misc/horror.txt

Any idea how it compares to Far Manager (https://www.farmanager.com/)?

Long time Far Manager and midnight commander/mc user. Just being at the terminal is good enough for me.

How does it compare to midnight commander?

Total Commander is on a whole different level of refinement and optimization.

Double Commander is good, indeed, but has some rough edges.

DC uses some components that are made by different authors and that are not that flexible and users ask for features which are beyond what those components can offer. So this is a dead end since nobody is updating/adapting the components so the features could be implemented.

DC has only two listed active developers, one of which is the author and the other one is new and fixes mostly Mac problems. If someone knows Free Pascal and Lazarus IDE or is interested in contributing, it would be to the benefit of all the users. I imagine it is not a trivial task to keep this program running on Windows/Linux/Mac with only two people.

For Windows, Unreal Commander is also good. Also Free Commander, but it is the slowest of all the orthodox file managers.

For Windows I liked Directory Opus (paid) the most [1].

I miss it daily on Linux.

[1] https://www.gpsoft.com.au/

Looks neat but a copy costs a third the price of windows. Hard sell.

I used to use DOpus as a Workbench (desktop environment) replacement on Commodore Amiga. Probably one of the most powerful and configurable / customizable file managers in existence.

Yes, TC is superb, almost 30 years old and still in development.

For those who want to take TC even further, there is the TCUP project here:

https://tcup.pl/news/

Double commander has an ultra-powerful multi-file renamer hidden within. Select files and press Ctrl+M.

Many people are not aware of that, but Finder also has that included. Select multiple files > Right Click > Rename

Whoa! Thänx for that ptr.

Windows has a PowerRename tool available in PowerToys

If you're on Mac, you might also want to try Forklift – by coincidence, they just released major version 4 yesterday (for which I was lucky to develop some of UI).

https://binarynights.com/

Another Mac native (though much older) choice is Path Finder, which I used and loved for years before Finder stopped sucking.

https://www.cocoatech.io

Darn, they pulled a Sublime Text on us. The new annual payment licensing model is unfortunate, I wouldn't have helped with beta testing if I knew this is what they were going to do. It's not really a service and historically they haven't been putting out a stream of useful new features on a regular basis to justify the subscription.

You are just subscribing to updates. The license is perpetual.

It has been my daily driver for almost a decade, when my license for Servant Salamander (from altap.cz) expired. I like the configurability with external tools apart from rock solid core functionality. I would like to see Everything (from voidtools) Integration like in Total Commander. (https://www.ghisler.com/everything.htm)

And now is freeware. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing (will they keep updating it?).

Salamander last update was 07/01/2019 so I really doubt it. Would not need it anymore though, considering advantages of Doublecmd and that is in active development since 2007.

My workhorse on Linux desktop. On Windows still use Total Commander out of habit which is pretty much the same. Midnight Commander for text mode

I keep the same set of configuration on Linuxes and Windows. Works best for muscle memory.

I wish bash had a way to pop up a tree view that let me select the source or destination for a command (like tar or sftp or anything). And remember the locations for these two trees (source & destination) independently.

Some of it can be achieved by Midnight Commander, maybe?

https://github.com/antonmedv/walk

FreeBSD: doas pkg install doublecmd-qt5

(there is a gtk variant as well doublecmd-gtk2-1.0.11_1)

It's good but nothing touches Directory Opus for me.

What features does DO have over DC?

Directory Opus, what makes it good?

I have seen DOpus mentioned several times over the years. is it keybindings, features, performance?

What is your impression of "Worker"? http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/

Double Commander - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32331716 - Aug 2022 (156 comments)

Double Commander – A twin-panel, cross-platform, file manager (FOSS) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13796038 - March 2017 (1 comment)

Wondering if anyone has tried this on MacOS and what their thoughts are.

May sound weird, but DC and my DC configurations are one of the few things that have kept me from moving to Mac, since I can't really find a detailed description / review of how well it works on Mac.

Maybe https://www.fileside.app would be worth a try for you?

Thanks for the suggestion. I feel like I've seen a million of these types of apps for MacOS, but not this one.

I use DC on my Mac, works just as well as on Linux, some of the touchpad gesture sometimes changes the font size and I have to reconfigure it once in a while when I accidentally do them, haven’t figured out a simple way to prevent this from happening.

Thanks very much. Super helpful!

For extending using Lua : https://doublecmd.github.io/doc/en/lua.html

Double Commander is amazing and I've been using it daily for years.

The ability to save frequently used (but complex enough to remember) commands as buttons is extremely helpful.

The benefits a GUI brings to the table when it comes to complex file manipulations are undeniable, as long as the tool doesn't stand in your way and, for the most part, Double Commander does not.

Double Commander also comes with Lua scripting which opens a door to even more customized workflows.

> Double Commander is a free cross platform open source file manager with two panels side by side. It is inspired by Total Commander and features new ideas.

Total Commander was inspired in turn by Norton Commander [1], the colors of which still form an afterimage in my eyes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander

Have any Forklift users here on MacOS tried Double Commander? A two-panel file manager of some kind is a hugely useful productivity tool, I'm just wondering if there's a reason to switch to this one. If not I'll give it a go when I have some free time.

If anyone on MacOS doesn't have a similar tool already you should definitely grab this. A two-panel file manager that supports bulk renaming is really handy.

I use Forklift. Version 4 just came out this week, with a new quasi-subscription model. Now it's $20/yr, or $35 for 2, but you can keep using the final version that comes out during your subscription period. That's not awful but I'm still disappointed.

My first impression: this is clearly not a "Mac-assed Mac app"[0]. The fonts are weird (but configurable). The keyboard shortcuts are weird (but configurable). The preference pane isn't under the "Double Commander > Settings" menu, but "Configuration > Options", and it doesn't open with "cmd-,", and that doesn't seem to be configurable.

These are not deal breakers. Different doesn't automatically mean bad. In this case, it does mean that you have to learn how to use it from scratch, compared to something like Forklift or Commander One that someone used to Finder can pick up and start using. It also doesn't seem to come with a zillion integrations with cloud services like S3, Box, etc. like the Mac-native options.

These are my first impressions. I've used it for maybe 20 minutes now. That's not a fair shake, and it could be that I'd absolutely love it if I kept at it. Still, it doesn't make me want to keep at it. I could see Double Commander being brilliant if I already used it on Linux and wanted to bring my workflow, settings, plugins, and all that to Mac. I don't think I'd want to start using it here.

[0] https://inessential.com/2020/03/19/proxyman

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. It looks like I'll be sticking with Forklift 3 for the long haul.

I did just install Double Commander on my Steam Deck, though. It's a vast improvement over Dolphin.

Anyone here recall the AMAZING PMV (PathMinder) for dos from back in the day - I have yet to find a better file management tool than PMV was... I could navigate everything via arrows and keyboard - I loved it.

Ill have to try this.

Screenshots for anyone like me who learns like that: https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/gallery/

If the link doesn't work, try copy pasting into a new tab instead of clicking.

What could be the reason that clicking won't work and pasting will? Is it something to do with referrer policy?

I assume that's what's going on, I guess to discourage hotlinking.

A wrongly configured hotlinking protection.

The actual URL is https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/gallery/index.html and the default behaviour is to redirect to index.html if no filename given, but due misconfiguration it requires no referrer on it too.

Very cool, will definitely try out this version. Wondering if it's now possible to change the color scheme of the viewer, that'd be nice. (Colors used to be more or less hardwired to black on white, IIRC).

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