7 ms·

Man, I must be getting old, because more and more often something like this pops up and it strikes me that this has been done before. In this case, I was flyin

Man, I must be getting old, because more and more often something like this pops up and it strikes me that this has been done before. In this case, I was flying through the file system like nobodies business in 1991 with Norton Commander[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander

dystroy 7y ago
Did Norton Commander trim the tree in order to show a deeper overview ? I don't think it did (or I don't remember that feature).
- smartmic 7y ago
  Probably the trim feature is a key differentiator. I am happy with nnn [1] so far but it really looks interesting. [1] https://github.com/jarun/nnn https://github.com/jarun/nnn
  - TuringTest 7y ago
    There's a significant underlying principle there. Commom UI widgets are not prepared to deal with collections of widely varying sizes. The two-pane file browser (folder tree plus folder contents like Windows 95 Explorer, or two parallel panes like Norton Commander) was a compromise solution that has worked for decades. But this idea of showing in context a limited view of representative items of each collection could be generalized and exploited in other generic data-heavy interfaces, where there's no business code to show the specific data loads in the best way.
    - flir 7y ago
      It's the zero/one/infinity rule. Programmers don't even know what it's called, they just absorb it by osmosis. But in the real world there are so many lists that will never have more than 20 items.
      - TuringTest 7y ago
        Well, I'd say the rule should be upgraded as zero/one/small-sample/expand-for-infinity, at least for user interfaces (not for coding, although doing it for coding is what lazy evaluation is for).
        flir 7y ago
        No argument here. I learnt about it from Alan Cooper's The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, which was published in 1999.
    - apjana 7y ago
      > Commom UI widgets are not prepared to deal with collections of widely varying sizes. I don't think there is a standard widget other than what's implemented by each solution. Broot is one way of looking at a volume at the expense of lots of disk reads (for every file on the volume). Ranger does that at a single depth and that's a design choice in Miller's view. nnn doesn't prefer to read within directories unless explicitly requested and that's a design choice too. There's nothing good or bad about these other than a choice to the user to pick the one that fits his use case. A user always has the liberty to concentrate only on the current directory, just know where he is in the filesystem from the file path and do a fuzzy search to find a file deep in the subtree when he needs to do so. As you might have noticed, even with Broot there's no simple way to list the files marked "unlisted" without navigating to the dir and expanding it. It's a nice program and is a solution to people who likes to see a snapshot of the filesystem in a glance. But would everyone be always interested in the contents of /etc, /run, /usr and /var as shown in one of the sample images?
      - TuringTest 7y ago
        Anything listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget#List_of_common_generic_widgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget#List_of_commo... does count as "standard widgets". There may be variations in different GUI libraries, but anything that deviates too much from common user expectations will be perceived as broken. There are ways to avoid traversing the whole volume in each use, namely caching each directory content when it's updated. As for always showing unwanted information, an interactive solution could allow an option to "fold and hide" specific folders so that their contents are not shown until the user specifically reopens them. A user-friendly interactive solution doesn't require the user to remember and choose among all the available choices for each use, it provides good defaults and reminders on how to access alternative options when those are needed.
  - apjana 7y ago
    One of the guiding principles of nnn is minimum disk IOs so probably it's not comparable in this respect. Reading through a complete volume on a stuffed microSD or SD card attached to a RaspberryPi to list the filesystem and then supporting dynamic events may not be very simple. nnn development is driven by minimum resource availability and usage.
- vetinari 7y ago
  Norton Commander could have the directory tree in one pane, and showing files from selected directory in the other pane, where you could scroll them.
  - TuringTest 7y ago
    Yes, but that's a less informative solution, as you can only see contents of one directory at a time. Broot provides a more comprehensive view of the file system.
koonsolo 7y ago
Oh yeah Norton Commander, that brings back memories! I've also used Total Commander for a while. I haven't seen any directory or file manager that is better.
- vetinari 7y ago
  > I've also used Total Commander for a while. I haven't seen any directory or file manager that is better. Far Manager is better, of course :)
- kmarc 7y ago
  I assume you all know Midnight Commander (mc) - because of my Norton/Total Commander past, this is still something I always install on my machines (although using it less often)
kronholm 7y ago
Once you get used to two panes, it's hard to go back. From ~1990 to now (yikes, 30 years!), I've used these: - Amiga: Directory Opus (DOpus) - MSDOS: Norton Commander (NC) - Windows: Total Commander - Linux: Midnight Commander (mc) - MacOS: Tux commander Looking back at old Directory Opus screenshots tickles the nostalgic bone. I miss the colourcoded buttons. I wonder if Directory Opus was the first 2-split navigator, but probably not.
- joshspankit 7y ago
  I’ve always found 2 panes to be extremely limiting
- yread 7y ago
  There were also PC Tools from 1985 which included a shell and other programs. https://books.google.nl/books?id=ki8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.nl/books?id=ki8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&redir_... I love how "FORMAT your disk without leaving your spreadsheet" is a feature
  - JdeBP 7y ago
    In the days of applications with no concept of standard file dialogues, running on single-tasking operating systems, for platforms where disc media were sold unformatted, and needed low-level formats, it really was. Being able to format a floppy disc and continue to do things on OS/2 without applications becoming seriously jerky was also a feature. (-: CentralPoint PC Tools seems little remembered nowadays. It was quite an extensive toolkit, as I recall. File viewers for various types of database/spreadsheet/wordprocessor files. Disc and file hex editors. Repair utilities. Extended directory change. A uniform look and feel, and a fairly good manual. The Graham Utilities was another one. * http://www.warpspeed.com.au/Products/OS2/GU/graham.htm http://www.warpspeed.com.au/Products/OS2/GU/graham.htm There seems to be no trace of things like InspectA (another OFM for OS/2) on the World Wide Web.
    - lproven 7y ago
      > CentralPoint PC Tools seems little remembered nowadays. Indeed, up to the point that the name was usurped by some unrelated software. It was very useful even in the later DOS era; it was a standard part of my travelling tech toolkit. It had one of the fastest floppy formatters around, and just about the fastest DOS disk-defragmenter I ever saw, nearly an order of magnitude quicker than Norton's. The PC Tools backup/restore tool was also superb and extremely fast. It used an extended disk format, squeezing about 1.6 MB onto an HD 3½" floppy, and compressed data on the fly, so many megabytes of software or data could be squeezed onto the minimum number of floppies. Benchmarks: http://www.oldskool.org/guides/dosbackupshootout http://www.oldskool.org/guides/dosbackupshootout Unlike rival extended formats, if you tried to DIR the disk from DOS, you got a warning message: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-central-point-backup-floppy-format/ http://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-central-point-backup-floppy-... What doomed Central Point software is that it did a licensing deal with Microsoft. Cut-down versions of PC Tools Backup and the separate Central Point Antivirus were bundled with MS-DOS 6. Microsoft promised CP that CP would make money from DOS 6 customers wishing to upgrade to the full versions. In actual fact, people got by with the freebie versions and CP's sales of standalone products _and_ upgrades both stagnated. MS tried similar tactics on STAC in the hope of bundling the Stacker disk-compression tool with MS-DOS 6. STAC, wisely, said no. So Microsoft just stole the code and used it anyway. STAC sued, won, and got $120M damages. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-24-fi-26671-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-24-fi-26671-... It used the money wisely, to diversify the company out of disk compression by acquisition, buying vendors of remote-control software (ReachOut) and enterprise backup (Replica). Sadly, this was long before ubiquitous Internet connectivity, even by dial-up modem. ReachOut mainly worked by direct-dial modem-to-modem comms -- useful, but expensive, as each machine to be controlled needs a modem, a telephone line and its own phone number. It wasn't enough and STAC ended up going broke. Central Point Software was bought out by Symantec, like Quarterdeck and Norton and others. MS-DOS 6 was badly buggy anyway and MS had to release a free update, MS-DOS 6.2. (Note, at this time, product updates, service packs, etc. were extremely rare.) Then, when it lost the STAC lawsuit, it released another update, MS-DOS 6.21, which simply removed disk compression altogether. Then MS rewrote the offending code and released MS-DOS 6.22, another free update, replacing the infringing "DoubleSpace" with "DriveSpace" -- basically the same tool but with different compression/decompression routines. This was the last-ever version of MS-DOS, and thus DOS 6 has the dubious distinction of being the most-patched release in history. There are details of this on Wikipedia but it's been sanitised by MS PR so it merely mentions patent infringement, rather than the direct code theft involved. https://tedium.co/2018/09/04/disk-compression-stacker-doublespace-history/ https://tedium.co/2018/09/04/disk-compression-stacker-double...
jijji 7y ago
midnight commander (mc) is the equivalent, but it really looks like ls -R | less
flir 7y ago
Everything's been done before. Social media is just finger/.plan files. The art's in executing better (eg the trim feature here).
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  Occasionally that better execution is overlooked because it looks like just a bunch of features, but a confluence of features often changes the game. A rope and pulley attached to a vertically-moving platform existed for a really long time, and then someone bolted on a ratchet, and it became an elevator, which (with some iteration, and marketing) gave birth to skyscrapers. Another one is LXC, which existed for 5 years before Docker's confluence of features (and impressive marketing) made it ubiquitous and changed the [backend] tech landscape.
  - flir 7y ago
    And before them both, chroot jails... at a high enough level of abstraction this reminds me of "there are only six plots", but occasionally a book will change the world.
FpUser 7y ago
I got exactly the same thought the minute I saw this post. I use Commander clones on all the OSes. To me they're irreplaceable tool.

dystroy 7y ago

Did Norton Commander trim the tree in order to show a deeper overview ? I don't think it did (or I don't remember that feature).

smartmic 7y ago
Probably the trim feature is a key differentiator. I am happy with nnn [1] so far but it really looks interesting. [1] https://github.com/jarun/nnn https://github.com/jarun/nnn
- TuringTest 7y ago
  There's a significant underlying principle there. Commom UI widgets are not prepared to deal with collections of widely varying sizes. The two-pane file browser (folder tree plus folder contents like Windows 95 Explorer, or two parallel panes like Norton Commander) was a compromise solution that has worked for decades. But this idea of showing in context a limited view of representative items of each collection could be generalized and exploited in other generic data-heavy interfaces, where there's no business code to show the specific data loads in the best way.
  - flir 7y ago
    It's the zero/one/infinity rule. Programmers don't even know what it's called, they just absorb it by osmosis. But in the real world there are so many lists that will never have more than 20 items.
    - TuringTest 7y ago
      Well, I'd say the rule should be upgraded as zero/one/small-sample/expand-for-infinity, at least for user interfaces (not for coding, although doing it for coding is what lazy evaluation is for).
      - flir 7y ago
        No argument here. I learnt about it from Alan Cooper's The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, which was published in 1999.
  - apjana 7y ago
    > Commom UI widgets are not prepared to deal with collections of widely varying sizes. I don't think there is a standard widget other than what's implemented by each solution. Broot is one way of looking at a volume at the expense of lots of disk reads (for every file on the volume). Ranger does that at a single depth and that's a design choice in Miller's view. nnn doesn't prefer to read within directories unless explicitly requested and that's a design choice too. There's nothing good or bad about these other than a choice to the user to pick the one that fits his use case. A user always has the liberty to concentrate only on the current directory, just know where he is in the filesystem from the file path and do a fuzzy search to find a file deep in the subtree when he needs to do so. As you might have noticed, even with Broot there's no simple way to list the files marked "unlisted" without navigating to the dir and expanding it. It's a nice program and is a solution to people who likes to see a snapshot of the filesystem in a glance. But would everyone be always interested in the contents of /etc, /run, /usr and /var as shown in one of the sample images?
    - TuringTest 7y ago
      Anything listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget#List_of_common_generic_widgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget#List_of_commo... does count as "standard widgets". There may be variations in different GUI libraries, but anything that deviates too much from common user expectations will be perceived as broken. There are ways to avoid traversing the whole volume in each use, namely caching each directory content when it's updated. As for always showing unwanted information, an interactive solution could allow an option to "fold and hide" specific folders so that their contents are not shown until the user specifically reopens them. A user-friendly interactive solution doesn't require the user to remember and choose among all the available choices for each use, it provides good defaults and reminders on how to access alternative options when those are needed.
- apjana 7y ago
  One of the guiding principles of nnn is minimum disk IOs so probably it's not comparable in this respect. Reading through a complete volume on a stuffed microSD or SD card attached to a RaspberryPi to list the filesystem and then supporting dynamic events may not be very simple. nnn development is driven by minimum resource availability and usage.
vetinari 7y ago
Norton Commander could have the directory tree in one pane, and showing files from selected directory in the other pane, where you could scroll them.
- TuringTest 7y ago
  Yes, but that's a less informative solution, as you can only see contents of one directory at a time. Broot provides a more comprehensive view of the file system.

koonsolo 7y ago

Oh yeah Norton Commander, that brings back memories! I've also used Total Commander for a while. I haven't seen any directory or file manager that is better.

vetinari 7y ago
> I've also used Total Commander for a while. I haven't seen any directory or file manager that is better. Far Manager is better, of course :)
kmarc 7y ago
I assume you all know Midnight Commander (mc) - because of my Norton/Total Commander past, this is still something I always install on my machines (although using it less often)

kronholm 7y ago

Once you get used to two panes, it's hard to go back. From ~1990 to now (yikes, 30 years!), I've used these: - Amiga: Directory Opus (DOpus) - MSDOS: Norton Commander (NC) - Windows: Total Commander - Linux: Midnight Commander (mc) - MacOS: Tux commander Looking back at old Directory Opus screenshots tickles the nostalgic bone. I miss the colourcoded buttons. I wonder if Directory Opus was the first 2-split navigator, but probably not.

joshspankit 7y ago
I’ve always found 2 panes to be extremely limiting
yread 7y ago
There were also PC Tools from 1985 which included a shell and other programs. https://books.google.nl/books?id=ki8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.nl/books?id=ki8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&redir_... I love how "FORMAT your disk without leaving your spreadsheet" is a feature
- JdeBP 7y ago
  In the days of applications with no concept of standard file dialogues, running on single-tasking operating systems, for platforms where disc media were sold unformatted, and needed low-level formats, it really was. Being able to format a floppy disc and continue to do things on OS/2 without applications becoming seriously jerky was also a feature. (-: CentralPoint PC Tools seems little remembered nowadays. It was quite an extensive toolkit, as I recall. File viewers for various types of database/spreadsheet/wordprocessor files. Disc and file hex editors. Repair utilities. Extended directory change. A uniform look and feel, and a fairly good manual. The Graham Utilities was another one. * http://www.warpspeed.com.au/Products/OS2/GU/graham.htm http://www.warpspeed.com.au/Products/OS2/GU/graham.htm There seems to be no trace of things like InspectA (another OFM for OS/2) on the World Wide Web.
  - lproven 7y ago
    > CentralPoint PC Tools seems little remembered nowadays. Indeed, up to the point that the name was usurped by some unrelated software. It was very useful even in the later DOS era; it was a standard part of my travelling tech toolkit. It had one of the fastest floppy formatters around, and just about the fastest DOS disk-defragmenter I ever saw, nearly an order of magnitude quicker than Norton's. The PC Tools backup/restore tool was also superb and extremely fast. It used an extended disk format, squeezing about 1.6 MB onto an HD 3½" floppy, and compressed data on the fly, so many megabytes of software or data could be squeezed onto the minimum number of floppies. Benchmarks: http://www.oldskool.org/guides/dosbackupshootout http://www.oldskool.org/guides/dosbackupshootout Unlike rival extended formats, if you tried to DIR the disk from DOS, you got a warning message: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-central-point-backup-floppy-format/ http://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-central-point-backup-floppy-... What doomed Central Point software is that it did a licensing deal with Microsoft. Cut-down versions of PC Tools Backup and the separate Central Point Antivirus were bundled with MS-DOS 6. Microsoft promised CP that CP would make money from DOS 6 customers wishing to upgrade to the full versions. In actual fact, people got by with the freebie versions and CP's sales of standalone products _and_ upgrades both stagnated. MS tried similar tactics on STAC in the hope of bundling the Stacker disk-compression tool with MS-DOS 6. STAC, wisely, said no. So Microsoft just stole the code and used it anyway. STAC sued, won, and got $120M damages. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-24-fi-26671-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-24-fi-26671-... It used the money wisely, to diversify the company out of disk compression by acquisition, buying vendors of remote-control software (ReachOut) and enterprise backup (Replica). Sadly, this was long before ubiquitous Internet connectivity, even by dial-up modem. ReachOut mainly worked by direct-dial modem-to-modem comms -- useful, but expensive, as each machine to be controlled needs a modem, a telephone line and its own phone number. It wasn't enough and STAC ended up going broke. Central Point Software was bought out by Symantec, like Quarterdeck and Norton and others. MS-DOS 6 was badly buggy anyway and MS had to release a free update, MS-DOS 6.2. (Note, at this time, product updates, service packs, etc. were extremely rare.) Then, when it lost the STAC lawsuit, it released another update, MS-DOS 6.21, which simply removed disk compression altogether. Then MS rewrote the offending code and released MS-DOS 6.22, another free update, replacing the infringing "DoubleSpace" with "DriveSpace" -- basically the same tool but with different compression/decompression routines. This was the last-ever version of MS-DOS, and thus DOS 6 has the dubious distinction of being the most-patched release in history. There are details of this on Wikipedia but it's been sanitised by MS PR so it merely mentions patent infringement, rather than the direct code theft involved. https://tedium.co/2018/09/04/disk-compression-stacker-doublespace-history/ https://tedium.co/2018/09/04/disk-compression-stacker-double...

jijji 7y ago

midnight commander (mc) is the equivalent, but it really looks like ls -R | less

flir 7y ago

Everything's been done before. Social media is just finger/.plan files. The art's in executing better (eg the trim feature here).

peterwwillis 7y ago
Occasionally that better execution is overlooked because it looks like just a bunch of features, but a confluence of features often changes the game. A rope and pulley attached to a vertically-moving platform existed for a really long time, and then someone bolted on a ratchet, and it became an elevator, which (with some iteration, and marketing) gave birth to skyscrapers. Another one is LXC, which existed for 5 years before Docker's confluence of features (and impressive marketing) made it ubiquitous and changed the [backend] tech landscape.
- flir 7y ago
  And before them both, chroot jails... at a high enough level of abstraction this reminds me of "there are only six plots", but occasionally a book will change the world.

FpUser 7y ago

I got exactly the same thought the minute I saw this post. I use Commander clones on all the OSes. To me they're irreplaceable tool.