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Comment by kakacik | Hacker News Reader

+1 for Total Commander mention, its bizarre how many otherwise smart folks completely ignore this productivity enhancer. I keep showing it to colleagues but they all anyway revert back to basic clunky File explorer and variants.

Doesn't matter if I show them that I can be easily 10x faster, do stuff simply impossible otherwise, has tons of plugins etc. its just ignored.

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The only negative side of Total Commander is I'm extremly used to it - been using it since mid 90s. When I compare alternatives on Mac I'm searching for exact keyboard commands, navigation patterns, etc. I'm using Crax Commander, but it's not the same.

TC is probably one of the reasons I don't care that much about problems in newer versions of Windows, I don't use Explorer, I don't use windows search, text is viewed with Lister and not Notepad...

I'm the same way except with command prompts. So long as I have a decent shell (bash and PowerShell are both good enough) with the ability to open files and some reasonable form of tab completion, I mostly only open up Windows File Explorer windows to use context menu items, or with Win+E to quickly check free disk space, and Mac Finder windows to drag and drop files into file picker dialog boxes in GUI apps.

I don't know about Total Commander because that appears to be Windows-only, but twin-pane "Commanders" (named after NC) do seem more popular in certain circles. They're still in wide use in Eastern Europe. Commanders have also influenced Dolphin, which has a built in twin-pane view (but it's not a commander because it lacks the typical keybinds) and there's a commander called Krusader that is a better fit.

Double Commander. It is awesome.

Another die-hard user of dual-pane commanders, including Total Commander for over 20 years, reporting in.

The best part about Total Commander is that my license from like 20 years ago is still valid, and every update that comes out still works with it and never pushes for upgrades, etc. As much as new software has dark patterns and upsells everywhere, Total Commander is wonderfully frozen in time in that regard.

Also a big plug for Far:

https://farmanager.com/

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