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Show HN: Cloud Commander orthodox web file manager with console and editor

81 points by coderaiser 10y ago

PuffinBlue 10y ago
Anyone want to give a run down of what this is/does? The live example isn't working either.
- Gruselbauer 10y ago
  From the site, it seems to be a Web version of mc on JS base, making file management outside of trusted ssh devices less of a nuisance. Fairly straightforward imho.
  - PuffinBlue 10y ago
    > Web version of mc on JS base What is mc?
    - underdown 10y ago
      midnight commander
      - PuffinBlue 10y ago
        Thanks. I guess this is my Ron Burgundy moment - 'I've never heard of it'. Looks like it would be very useful for some of the stuff I do too. Clearly I've been living under a rock.
    - LinuxFreedom 10y ago
      "mc" is software that runs on "Linux" systems, in something called a "terminal". "Linux" is a free (as in freedom) computer system that is very "hacker"-friendly - ask around in your circles, maybe you can find anybody who is familiar with computers and is also experienced with "coding" and she can show you this "Linux" computer system that is preferred by "hackers". Maybe your mom or your dad will allow you to install that system on your own computer, so you can start exploring it yourself - it is a great way to learn "coding" - that is what "hackers" do. Just ask them, I am sure you will like it, if you like reading news here!
      - Veen 10y ago
        Maybe your mom and dad will teach you some manners if you ask them nicely.
    - kroo 10y ago
      "mc" stands for midnight commander, which is itself a clone of Norton commander, which was sold by Symantec in the 80s and 90s. Norton commander was popular enough that by the time it was discontinued it had been ported to many other platforms (midnight commander being one of the ports for unix systems). Over time, Norton commander became the prototype for the "orthodox file manager", the category of file managers with two side-by-side file browser windows: many of the same key bindings for this category of file manager are the same as the original norton commander keybindings. Midnight commander (and more generally an orthodox file manager) is especially useful for moving files from one system to another, as it usually supports browsing to remote file systems over ssh or ftp, and gives you a simultaneous view of where you're moving files from and to on the same screen. The Wikipedia page is a pretty interesting read, actually: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Actually it started as a independent company that Symantec bought in the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton_Computing
        kroo 10y ago
        Fascinating, TIL–thanks!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
Gruselbauer 10y ago
This looks hella useful. Checking it out today. Thanks!
60654 10y ago
Hey, that looks like Norton Commander in the browser! Even the icon is an homage to the original. Neat. Also TIL that "orthodox" file manager is an actual term, and there's even a huge online book about them [1]. That's funny, we used to call then just "file managers"... ;) 1. http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml
- doublerebel 10y ago
  Oh, what Norton used to be. I cut my teeth on Norton Utilities once upon a time. The only way to write batch files!
- 8ig8 10y ago
  Wikipedia has an overview: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_managers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_m...
- kayamon 10y ago
  It's not an actual term, it's just some guy who keeps editing Wikipedia to try and introduce it.
iflowfor8hours 10y ago
I have been trying to break a FAR manager addiction for many many years, despite being a linux user exclusively for the last 10, FAR is the most useful shell I have ever used. mc doesn't cut it.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I guess my may have seen it, but there appears to a project ongoing to try to port FAR to Linux. https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l
nthcolumn 10y ago
Excellent! Great doco too.
digi_owl 10y ago
Makes me wish this was what Firefox would present me with if i entered a ftp url...
hiou 10y ago
This has to be the greatest logo I've seen in a while. Did you create it yourself and if so what did you use?
- coderaiser 10y ago
  This logo is a work of a great designer http://zalitok.github.io http://zalitok.github.io She use CorelDRAW and Adobe Ilustrator for this purpose.
ygra 10y ago
A few things I noticed in the live demo: - The console isn't there unless you open it manually, at which point it overlays the panels. To me one of the main benefits of an OFM is that you have a console always available as well as the panels (from which you can pick file names or paths (Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]). If I want only one or the other I'd use Explorer and cmd instead of Far. - The context menu (curiously opened with F9, which normally triggers the application menu of the OFM, from which you can access settings, view options, etc.) is not usable with the keyboard, which kinda defeats its purpose in such a tool. - Bulk selection keys Num+ and Num- don't work, although they are documented. - Alt+Left/Right is perhaps not the best idea for a hotkey in a browser. Sometimes it performs its intended function, when pressed in the wrong panel it instead performs the browser's function for going around the history. I'd say either find better hotkeys or always disable the browser's function, instead of contextual. - Page↑/Page↓ curiously move less than a page, which means when pressing Page↓ with the cursor at the top, the list doesn't scroll. - When using a keyboard layout where `/~ is a dead key (e.g. US International), the dead key will remain active for the first key pressed in the console, leading to things like à instead of a. This may not be circumventable from within a web application, but perhaps a better hotkey can be chosen instead to make up for the deficiencies of handling input in web applications. This issue also would go away once the console is always there instead of having to be toggled. - The feedback button in the live demo doesn't work.
- coderaiser 10y ago
  Thank you for such a detailed commentary. - Yes, there is such thing: console opens on a modal, but it would not be changed in the nearest future in Cloud Commander, anyways console(https://github.com/cloudcmd/console https://github.com/cloudcmd/console) could be used independently to build a fork from cloudcmd dependencies which are mostly located on npm. I can help with it but I have no time to do it myself. It is a good idea about picking file names or paths (Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]). Actually you already can paste path to current directory with Ctrl + P, but using this hotkeys would be more convenient. - You right about menu. It is a simplest possible component https://github.com/coderaiser/menu-io https://github.com/coderaiser/menu-io, anyways it could be improved, pull requests are welcome. - Num+ and Num- and Alt+Left/Right fixed in v5.7.6 (https://github.com/coderaiser/cloudcmd/releases/tag/v5.7.6 https://github.com/coderaiser/cloudcmd/releases/tag/v5.7.6) - I can not reproduce Page↑/Page↓ bug, maybe it is related to screen size? What screen resolution do you have? - I'll think about dead key, looks like it should be handled separately. - It is strange, I can't reproduce feedback button bug either. What browser and OS do you have? Could you look at Network Panel and Console of Developer Tools of your browser? Is there something red?

81 points by coderaiser 10y ago

PuffinBlue 10y ago

Anyone want to give a run down of what this is/does? The live example isn't working either.

Gruselbauer 10y ago
From the site, it seems to be a Web version of mc on JS base, making file management outside of trusted ssh devices less of a nuisance. Fairly straightforward imho.
- PuffinBlue 10y ago
  > Web version of mc on JS base What is mc?
  - underdown 10y ago
    midnight commander
    - PuffinBlue 10y ago
      Thanks. I guess this is my Ron Burgundy moment - 'I've never heard of it'. Looks like it would be very useful for some of the stuff I do too. Clearly I've been living under a rock.
  - LinuxFreedom 10y ago
    "mc" is software that runs on "Linux" systems, in something called a "terminal". "Linux" is a free (as in freedom) computer system that is very "hacker"-friendly - ask around in your circles, maybe you can find anybody who is familiar with computers and is also experienced with "coding" and she can show you this "Linux" computer system that is preferred by "hackers". Maybe your mom or your dad will allow you to install that system on your own computer, so you can start exploring it yourself - it is a great way to learn "coding" - that is what "hackers" do. Just ask them, I am sure you will like it, if you like reading news here!
    - Veen 10y ago
      Maybe your mom and dad will teach you some manners if you ask them nicely.
  - kroo 10y ago
    "mc" stands for midnight commander, which is itself a clone of Norton commander, which was sold by Symantec in the 80s and 90s. Norton commander was popular enough that by the time it was discontinued it had been ported to many other platforms (midnight commander being one of the ports for unix systems). Over time, Norton commander became the prototype for the "orthodox file manager", the category of file managers with two side-by-side file browser windows: many of the same key bindings for this category of file manager are the same as the original norton commander keybindings. Midnight commander (and more generally an orthodox file manager) is especially useful for moving files from one system to another, as it usually supports browsing to remote file systems over ssh or ftp, and gives you a simultaneous view of where you're moving files from and to on the same screen. The Wikipedia page is a pretty interesting read, actually: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Actually it started as a independent company that Symantec bought in the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton_Computing
      - kroo 10y ago
        Fascinating, TIL–thanks!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

Gruselbauer 10y ago

This looks hella useful. Checking it out today. Thanks!

60654 10y ago

Hey, that looks like Norton Commander in the browser! Even the icon is an homage to the original. Neat. Also TIL that "orthodox" file manager is an actual term, and there's even a huge online book about them [1]. That's funny, we used to call then just "file managers"... ;) 1. http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml

doublerebel 10y ago
Oh, what Norton used to be. I cut my teeth on Norton Utilities once upon a time. The only way to write batch files!
8ig8 10y ago
Wikipedia has an overview: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_managers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_m...
kayamon 10y ago
It's not an actual term, it's just some guy who keeps editing Wikipedia to try and introduce it.

iflowfor8hours 10y ago

I have been trying to break a FAR manager addiction for many many years, despite being a linux user exclusively for the last 10, FAR is the most useful shell I have ever used. mc doesn't cut it.

digi_owl 10y ago
I guess my may have seen it, but there appears to a project ongoing to try to port FAR to Linux. https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l

nthcolumn 10y ago

Excellent! Great doco too.

digi_owl 10y ago

Makes me wish this was what Firefox would present me with if i entered a ftp url...

hiou 10y ago

This has to be the greatest logo I've seen in a while. Did you create it yourself and if so what did you use?

coderaiser 10y ago
This logo is a work of a great designer http://zalitok.github.io http://zalitok.github.io She use CorelDRAW and Adobe Ilustrator for this purpose.

ygra 10y ago

A few things I noticed in the live demo: - The console isn't there unless you open it manually, at which point it overlays the panels. To me one of the main benefits of an OFM is that you have a console always available as well as the panels (from which you can pick file names or paths (Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]). If I want only one or the other I'd use Explorer and cmd instead of Far. - The context menu (curiously opened with F9, which normally triggers the application menu of the OFM, from which you can access settings, view options, etc.) is not usable with the keyboard, which kinda defeats its purpose in such a tool. - Bulk selection keys Num+ and Num- don't work, although they are documented. - Alt+Left/Right is perhaps not the best idea for a hotkey in a browser. Sometimes it performs its intended function, when pressed in the wrong panel it instead performs the browser's function for going around the history. I'd say either find better hotkeys or always disable the browser's function, instead of contextual. - Page↑/Page↓ curiously move less than a page, which means when pressing Page↓ with the cursor at the top, the list doesn't scroll. - When using a keyboard layout where `/~ is a dead key (e.g. US International), the dead key will remain active for the first key pressed in the console, leading to things like à instead of a. This may not be circumventable from within a web application, but perhaps a better hotkey can be chosen instead to make up for the deficiencies of handling input in web applications. This issue also would go away once the console is always there instead of having to be toggled. - The feedback button in the live demo doesn't work.

coderaiser 10y ago
Thank you for such a detailed commentary. - Yes, there is such thing: console opens on a modal, but it would not be changed in the nearest future in Cloud Commander, anyways console(https://github.com/cloudcmd/console https://github.com/cloudcmd/console) could be used independently to build a fork from cloudcmd dependencies which are mostly located on npm. I can help with it but I have no time to do it myself. It is a good idea about picking file names or paths (Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]). Actually you already can paste path to current directory with Ctrl + P, but using this hotkeys would be more convenient. - You right about menu. It is a simplest possible component https://github.com/coderaiser/menu-io https://github.com/coderaiser/menu-io, anyways it could be improved, pull requests are welcome. - Num+ and Num- and Alt+Left/Right fixed in v5.7.6 (https://github.com/coderaiser/cloudcmd/releases/tag/v5.7.6 https://github.com/coderaiser/cloudcmd/releases/tag/v5.7.6) - I can not reproduce Page↑/Page↓ bug, maybe it is related to screen size? What screen resolution do you have? - I'll think about dead key, looks like it should be handled separately. - It is strange, I can't reproduce feedback button bug either. What browser and OS do you have? Could you look at Network Panel and Console of Developer Tools of your browser? Is there something red?