Far Manager is a critical piece of software for me to be able to use a computer comfortably and efficiently. Used it all the way from Windows 98 to Windows 7, and now Arch Linux.
Especially since LuaJIT support was added in Far 3 (and far2l Linux port's fork, far2m), I made it to be able to execute a line of Lua code under cursor or in a block of selected text, and print the result (if any) to the editor, turning the editor into something conceptually stronger than a REPL or a command prompt combined.
So now I have two upgrades over command prompt: file-focused, as with Far by default, and Lua-focused.
I've been joking that Far Manager has become my real OS. It also was a source of endless debates with my Linux friend, who insists that everything I can do in Far, he can do in Bash quicker, but that seems true only because he doesn't know Far keyboard shortcuts.
I found Linux port only recently but some functions are messed up, no Alt-F1/Alt-F2, search for files in the current pane isn't working (Alt+character1, character2, etc), and copy/paste too. To the point that it's almost unusable. Any advice?
Make sure you run wxgtk build, not the terminal one. Terminal is limited on what shortcuts it can do. But wxgtk build runs exactly as windows counterpart - Alt+F1/F2 and many other shortcuts work fine.
Related: I've been using Total Commander / Windows Commander for quite some time. Still use it occasionally even to this day. If you're into orthodox file managers, check it out.
Total Commander is so amazing I keep a Windows VM around just to use it over a network share. Haven't found anything that would come close for rapidly manually categorizing a lot of files. It also uses (minimal) GUI features really well, e.g., compared to Far Manager, a TUI program, it has tabs in default config, shows icons, and uses variable-width fonts in listings and search for increased information density.
Have you tried running it under wine? It works perfectly fine on my Linux system. You may only need to add a few shortcuts to convert paths for your custom commands.
Love Total Commander. Bought license 20 years ago and still use it. Before that I used Norton Commander and Dos Navigator in dos-era. So powerful tools.
I've been using FAR for the last 20+ years on a daily basis and it hasn't crashed a single time for me. I like its minimalist UI, but a quite complex functions are only a click or two away and various plugins extend its functionality in useful ways (for example, Netbox for ftp access). I think it's a fantastically useful and robust tool.
And if you're running Far under ConEmu, copy ConEmu\Plugins\ConEmu folder into Far's Plugins folder. It will do better integration with ConEmu (there will be bunch of new ConEmu related features under F11 menu in Far).
I mostly use arclite, Brackets matching, Netbox (for FTP access), Process list, FarColorer and Temporary panel. I suspect most of them come bundled with Far.
I read somewhere that if you can read Russian, you could get a license for free (I guess it's generally free now). This is supposedly why many Russian competitive programmers use Far Manager (with some plugins) for editing code. This includes Tourist, who I am told is one of the world's best.
As far as I remember Far was always extremely popular. As far as I remember before "free license" there were various cracks readily available. At some point the author gave up and said something along the line, I won't make money from "russians" anyway so please use this "license" and may be you will stop to produce those cracks!
When on Windows, Far becomes tool to go if you are developer. Powerful file browser with shell and quick viewer and editor, also with ability to create shortcuts to dirs and commands. All together it creates this mouse-free flow which many devs like.
That's correct, at some point magic license "xUSSR регистрация" (ex-USSR registration) allowed you to register for free. Quoting from memory, the exact text may have been slightly different. The idea was to let people from former Soviet Union use the fully-featured version without paying shareware price they generally could not afford back then.
And since they couldn’t afford it, they’d write cracks for it, which would end up in the West. The idea was let them get it free, and then the desire to write cracks is reduced.
Far is a fantastic piece of software, with an excellent pedigree.
Same key bindings, look and feel as Norton Commander, with lots more functionality, but added with considerable thought and restraint. Delightful to use and very well done. Not everyone's cup o' tea, granted, but worth taking for a spin if only to see a very faithful reproduction of the grandfather of all two-pane file managers.
I fail to understand how two-panel file managers didn’t become the default. It seems that in the 90s Norton Commander and it’s derivatives were widely used on DOS PCs. They made many file management tasks so much easier. Why don’t we see them around nowadays?
I know that FAR and probably Midnight Commander are still around, but I just don’t see anybody using them.
My best guess is mouse oriented UI and desktop environments targeted at non expert users.
Two-panel file managers solve certain interaction problems in a keyboard driven and terminal based environments. Those aren't as much of a problem in a modern desktop environment where you can open multiple file explorer windows and copy-paste or drag and drop files between windows of your choice. The way graphical desktop environments work there is less ambiguity for selecting source/destination in case of more than 2 windows. Clipboard an drag and drop interfaces allow dragging files even into other other non file explorer programs. For example you can drag a file from file explorer into a video editing or image editing software the same way you would drag it between two file explorer windows.
Clipboard and drag and drop APIs is usually outside the scope of most terminal programs. Working with multiple programs at the same time efficiently requires additional software like screen or tmux. And the means for exchanging information between programs is limited (beside going through file system or chaining list of programs with pipes, but that's a different usage paradigm). Two panel file manger solves both of these issues by drawing two contexts and providing interactions between them in single program.
Two-panel file manager can provide a very effective tool for experts, even in a GUI based systems due to having an interface that's designed with keyboard and efficiency in mind. Which is why I think they are still popular in certain niche. But for a non expert users keyboard driven interfaces can be opaque and hard to discover. Mouse based graphical interfaces are much friendlier for new users and make it easier to discover functionality, even if they are less efficient and require more clicks/key presses for experts.
FAR Manager has been the place I lived as a Windows power user, I remember using it with a highly customized ConEmu which I carried around as a portable installation on a USB drive (on my keychain)
Whenever a relative or friend asked me to troubleshoot some problem on his PC (which was quite often), I plugged that drive in and instantly looked like I probably know what I'm doing.
I remember having plugins for navigating into DBs, archives, FTP, Android ADB filesystems, Windows Registry, processes, MP3 ID3 tags, MTP storage devices etc.
I felt like a monkey trying to type Shakespeare when I bought a Mac and did not have FAR Manager anymore. With fish shell and fzf I fulfilled most of my use cases nowadays on Mac.
Now, if only there was an Everything file search alternative, there really is nothing that matches that on macOS.
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Especially since LuaJIT support was added in Far 3 (and far2l Linux port's fork, far2m), I made it to be able to execute a line of Lua code under cursor or in a block of selected text, and print the result (if any) to the editor, turning the editor into something conceptually stronger than a REPL or a command prompt combined.
So now I have two upgrades over command prompt: file-focused, as with Far by default, and Lua-focused.
I've been joking that Far Manager has become my real OS. It also was a source of endless debates with my Linux friend, who insists that everything I can do in Far, he can do in Bash quicker, but that seems true only because he doesn't know Far keyboard shortcuts.
https://www.ghisler.ch/wiki/index.php?title=Total_Commander_...
PortaDev for accessing MTP mounts (like Android): https://plugring.farmanager.com/plugin.php?l=en&pid=933
DiskMenu for adding custom locations in Alt+F1/F2 menus: https://sourceforge.net/projects/farplugs/files/DiskMenu/
And if you're running Far under ConEmu, copy ConEmu\Plugins\ConEmu folder into Far's Plugins folder. It will do better integration with ConEmu (there will be bunch of new ConEmu related features under F11 menu in Far).
When on Windows, Far becomes tool to go if you are developer. Powerful file browser with shell and quick viewer and editor, also with ability to create shortcuts to dirs and commands. All together it creates this mouse-free flow which many devs like.
Well it's not like they could afford it when the average monthly wage in the '90's was something like 50 bucks.
Same key bindings, look and feel as Norton Commander, with lots more functionality, but added with considerable thought and restraint. Delightful to use and very well done. Not everyone's cup o' tea, granted, but worth taking for a spin if only to see a very faithful reproduction of the grandfather of all two-pane file managers.
I know that FAR and probably Midnight Commander are still around, but I just don’t see anybody using them.
Two-panel file managers solve certain interaction problems in a keyboard driven and terminal based environments. Those aren't as much of a problem in a modern desktop environment where you can open multiple file explorer windows and copy-paste or drag and drop files between windows of your choice. The way graphical desktop environments work there is less ambiguity for selecting source/destination in case of more than 2 windows. Clipboard an drag and drop interfaces allow dragging files even into other other non file explorer programs. For example you can drag a file from file explorer into a video editing or image editing software the same way you would drag it between two file explorer windows.
Clipboard and drag and drop APIs is usually outside the scope of most terminal programs. Working with multiple programs at the same time efficiently requires additional software like screen or tmux. And the means for exchanging information between programs is limited (beside going through file system or chaining list of programs with pipes, but that's a different usage paradigm). Two panel file manger solves both of these issues by drawing two contexts and providing interactions between them in single program.
Two-panel file manager can provide a very effective tool for experts, even in a GUI based systems due to having an interface that's designed with keyboard and efficiency in mind. Which is why I think they are still popular in certain niche. But for a non expert users keyboard driven interfaces can be opaque and hard to discover. Mouse based graphical interfaces are much friendlier for new users and make it easier to discover functionality, even if they are less efficient and require more clicks/key presses for experts.
FAR Manager has been the place I lived as a Windows power user, I remember using it with a highly customized ConEmu which I carried around as a portable installation on a USB drive (on my keychain)
Whenever a relative or friend asked me to troubleshoot some problem on his PC (which was quite often), I plugged that drive in and instantly looked like I probably know what I'm doing.
I remember having plugins for navigating into DBs, archives, FTP, Android ADB filesystems, Windows Registry, processes, MP3 ID3 tags, MTP storage devices etc.
I felt like a monkey trying to type Shakespeare when I bought a Mac and did not have FAR Manager anymore. With fish shell and fzf I fulfilled most of my use cases nowadays on Mac.
Now, if only there was an Everything file search alternative, there really is nothing that matches that on macOS.