filmanagers

[Horn Gábor]

Hi!

I spent a little time discovering file managers under Linux, here is my
exprience: as a found, there're two different file managers in the
user's pow. If we use the windows examples, there're "Windows explorer"
like tools, and there are "Windows commander" likes. The main difference
is the two panel system, and the usage of kb/mouse. Usually users use
Explorer stuff with mouse, and Commander stuff with kb. So Commander is
an "advanced tool" for many win users, but more experienced users
prefers it to explorer, because it's faster to navigate and copy/move
files with it.
Let's see them:

1, Win Explorer like stuff: we like if it's fast, automatically handles
file types, but still customizable, and has "intuitive" icons for
different file types. We want it to handle the compressed files, show
directory usage, etc - so the basic stuff Win Explorer does. And one
more thing is the eye candy. A myself like if it's good to look at an
app. If we have a secure, stable, open system why don't get it to be
nice to look at? Sometimes my friends come to me, we're chatting,
drinking beer, and (here my comp comes :) listen to music, watch videos,
check something on the net, etc. "Of course" my linux is new to them,
and i noticed they (the tipically average users) cares 40% for
funtionality ('hey it plays videos smooth', 'hm it didn't crash for 2
hours') and 60% for eye candy ('u have a nice background' , 'what's that
stuff there?' <- a simple transparent gkrellm on my desktop, 'why do the
apps look different?', etc i guess all you know what i'm talking about).
So the conclusion: if we put 100 hours of work to make a good and stable
system, put that other 2 too to make it nice and consistent, that's the
way linux can get more users imho (just compare gimp 1.2 and gimp 1.3 at
first sight...)! I found it's not easy to find not only good apps for
linux, but apps which LOOKS good too :) I myself like xftree, but
because my win friends i looked for sg more similar to Win Explorer -
the one app they know. I found endeavour2, which is a great app! It has
a bit ugly icons by default but easily u can replace then with gentoo's
icons (which are the best i found under linux). It was the first
filemanager my friends could use "without any question" :) Oh yes, and
it' lightweight, 10 times faster than nautilus or konqueror :)...but
still buggy, sometimes when moving files it lefts some ugly windows on
the screen, etc :(   If anybody knows better replacement of Windoes
explorer form a user's pow please let us know! (i attach a screenshot of
it if u don't mind).
About xftree: it's a great app with far more knowledge (nice integration
with xfsamba, xfglob, xfdiff, etc) than win explorer, it's fust, just
it's not that "nice" yet. I hope there's a designer out there who will
make kick-ass icons for it, then it might the BEST :)) I also miss a
little the capability to "switch" it to a two panel style. And when i
make a "show size of dir" it would be great to be able to get the size
in a more human form than the number of bytes (eg 21,5 MB :). Of course
i only say it as a "feedback" or wish-list of me, not at all as a flame
or sg like that!


2, Win Commander like stuff: yeah i put mc here too :) IMHO we like them
because after a little experience it's much faster to work with them. We
like if it handles ftp connections (imho the way wincommander does is
simple and efficient - strange behaviour from a win program :). It was a
surprise for me how hard to find a good (graphical) wincomannder clone
for linux. The best i found is Gentoo. It's cool but still far from
wincommander. Greatly cutomizable (an set almost properly by dfault)
MIME stuff, very good icons, fast navigation. But no ftp handling, and a
bit "oldie" intrface :) Can i ask what u use as a wincommander clone
under linux please (except mc :)? As i saw there're plenty on
freshmeat.net but all of them knows the same and a bit ugly. Oh we have
a tool called 'krusader' that's not bad, but (as almost all kde apps)
sloooow :(

thanks, hirisov


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