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Midnight Commander Development Revived
richlv writes "Popular Unix console file manager Midnight Commander has experienced a stall for the last few years. Most distributions (including the conservative Slackware) shipped patched packages or snapshots. Despite that, everybody had a favorite bug or two — either inability to specify ssh connection port, or problems with interrupted FTP sessions. Or maybe copying of larger datasets. Or maybe the infamous 'shell is still active' message, which often brought unexpected changes of current directory with it. Whatever it was, we either cursed it every time, or learned to live with it. It seems that finally something many were waiting for has happened — there's some activity on mc development. Check out the new homepage, and let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy."
I'm still waiting for a restart on wmaker's development. anyone have any news about it ?
What ? Me, worry ?
I love mc!
I use it all the time for patch management. One little tidbit that most people do not know about mc is that you can cd into a patch. Edit the diffs in the patch, and copy a diff from one patch to another patch file, just like copying or moving a file.
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Midnight Commander is one of the tools that I could live without, but I sure wouldn't want to. I use it all over the place ... on the Solaris servers and my Windows XP workstation here at work, on my Linux, OS/2, and Windows boxes at home, on my Nokia 770 tablet, etc.
It makes it easier to delete files and directory trees with certainty (and accuracy!), the built-in editor is good enough for modifying shell scripts and even making moderate code changes to more involved programs, its built-in FTP capability is invaluable when one has to flip a lot of files or directories between hosts, and its customizable menus and panelization capabilities can add some fairly powerful capabilities to even the most dedicated command-line user.
I love my Midnight Commander! :-)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
While we're resurrecting old text mode utilities, can we get a modern Magellan clone? None of the search front-ends to stuff like Spotlight or Beagle that I've tried come close to being as cool as Magellan was.
By the way, does Magellan still work on Windows? The last time I tried was probably on XP SP1.
The two programs that drive me bonkers are mc and vi. Why? because I'm not savvy to their syntax and their is no obvious way to get out of them once you launch them. Control-c and control-d and control-z all seem to get captured by mc.
So many times I've accidentally typed mc when I meant something else!
Of course by now I've memorized that :q gets me out of vi.
I suppose you could give the same lament about emacs but one never accidentally types "emacs". Most unix command lines are 2 letters so one has the muscle memory habit of typing them. So it's very easy to type mc or (less frequently) vi accidentally.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... when GNUIT (previously GIT) is out there ?
Smaller, faster, compiles fine on all platforms with any C compiler and it only requires curses.
And most impportantly it doesn't crashes and it doesn't corrupsts files like MC does.
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The choice of tools that one has is rarely an either/or choice.
That's why I tend to write a mix of shell scripts, Perl, and C code depending on the task at hand.
It's also why I sometimes use Midnight Commander to perform tasks which I could also manage using other (and often simpler) tools. Sometimes file copies in the morning go astray -- I find this happens less often when I use a tool which explicitly shows me the destination. Sometimes using a color-coded editor is nice when my eyes are tired and I'm not on a server which has vim installed (that means most of them here).
It's Windows mentality to assume that there's only one solution for the job, it's not UNIX mentality. :-)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I'm pretty sure the people working on this project would consider anything "desktop" oriented irrelevant.
If I can type 'mc', hit a bunch of hotkeys, and be done in a couple of seconds isnt' that a tool worth having? I can do a hell of a lot with mc before krusader even loads up. And I don't even have to take my fingers off the keyboard.
That's not irrelevant to the desktop, that's a superior alternative to the desktop.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
While I'll be glad to see the resurrection of Midnight Commander, I'm not chomping at the bit because I think that the Worker file manager is a much better alternative. Its design will be immediately recognizable to those who have spent any time with the Amiga because it is based on (which is a nice way of saying it's a virtual copy of) Directory Opus. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.
1. Pops up faster
2. Being able to use it over a tty console
3. Hotkeys
4. If you want to compare it to a KDE app, at least pick Krusader
5. Profit
I highly suggest reading The Art of UNIX Programming to see why the CLI is still [highly] relevant, even for desktop users. Granted, I am probably in the minority, but my job would be significantly harder if I weren't able to just string long chains of arbitrary commands together. I'd probably spend a lot more time programming and a lot less time working. xargs is a fucking godsend, let me tell you.
As much as I've tried, I can't get used to mc's rather emacs-like excessive use of modifier keys. Does anyone know of a similar program - or even better a modification of mc - which is more vi-like and uses 'modes' instead of Ctrl et al?
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
I prefer CLI and ncurses apps, because they are designed for a keyboard interface. I have found console-based apps for all my needs, and the only thing I run most of the time I run a screen session in urxvt and forefox with vimperator, which also saves me form having to reach for a touchpad/mouse. This is of course doable also with ratpoison, xmonad, and others, but in GUI apps ease of control exclusively form the keyboard is not usually a big priority.