5 ms·

The History of Development of Norton Commander (2010)

67 points by quijoteuniv 6y ago

quijoteuniv 6y ago
I remembered about Norton Commander today when I opened a second window of "Files" in Ubuntu to do some tidy up and moving around of files.
- soapdog 6y ago
  Why not use midnight commander on ubuntu?
  - extro 6y ago
    mc is disgusting.
    - fb03 6y ago
      Care to elaborate on that? I use it for navigating quickly and i'm just a C-o away from the unbridled shell. I find it very useful. Also, do you have another command line mc alternative to suggest? I'm always open to try new tools.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        It fails to do the 'just works' magic. Selecting files, moving them from place to place is always weirdly unpleasant.
  - quijoteuniv 6y ago
    Will check it out :)
- radoslawc 6y ago
  There's quite good Worker file manager: http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/ http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/
- 1wd 6y ago
  Double Commander is another alternative. Open source, cross platform, actively developed (in Free Pascal and Lazarus) https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/ https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/
empressplay 6y ago
Pre-Windows 95 every PC I owned or configured booted into this.
xiphias2 6y ago
FAR manager is still a nice way to manage files in a 2-pane mode on Windows
- AtlasLion 6y ago
  I still use it daily.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Left windows years ago and not looking back, and FAR manager is the only software I miss on Ubuntu. midnight commander doesn't even come close, unfortunately.
  - valeg 6y ago
    There is a port of sorts: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l Still an early stage but nonetheless.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
Norton Commander is to DOS as Directory Opus is to the Amiga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus
- danielbarla 6y ago
  I noted with some interest (now about 20 years ago) that Directory Opus had gotten a Windows version. It still seems to be alive and kicking, which is good to see!
graycrow 6y ago
I have stopped using Windows, but the only software that I miss is a modern NC clone called Far Manager [1]. [1] https://www.farmanager.com/ https://www.farmanager.com/
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  Have you tried Midnight Commander?
  - graycrow 6y ago
    Of course, but MC is (to put it lightly) not feature complete :) Ended by using MC, far2l (Far Manager 2 Linux clone) and Far Manager 3 under Wine depending on a task, but nothing can compare to native Far on Windows.
- atemerev 6y ago
  Far for Linux now works well. But I have adapted to mc since then.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    TIL Far for Linux exists! Will go check it out now.
_ZeD_ 6y ago
Still using Total commander on my android phone
- mbeex 6y ago
  IMO, this port is subpar. Ghislers original is "the best thing since sliced bread", I'm using it for more than ~20 years and it is the first software I have on USB flash drive or install (copy) to a new Windows machine. But the mobile version never clicked for me. I'm using X-plore on Android for ~2 years now and I'm quite happy with it. It is also the only app I could find, that supports Windows shares in a rather hassle-free way.
klaustopher 6y ago
I was always a fan of XTree[1], was always more intuitive to me than norton commander. Still have the shortcuts in muscle memory `xtg` for the win [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree
- RoryH 6y ago
  Came here to basically say this :-)
- ghaff 6y ago
  I liked Xtree. I actually had my own DOS file manager (Directory Freedom) but that was deliberately kept very small and fast. I liked Xtree for when I wanted to look at or work with the whole directory structure.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > It was published by Underwear Systems, later Executive Systems, Inc. Beautiful.
kasperni 6y ago
Sweet memories... [1] is a great walk down memory lane. [1] http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_commander.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_command...
dusted 6y ago
I never used NC much, but I recall a friend of mine having a DOS PC that booted into it.. When I first ventured into linux, I was not good with the command line, and was very pleased to find MC, it helped me a lot until I got the hang of the CLI.
graycrow 6y ago
There also was Volkov Commander (VC) - a faster and smaller clone of NC. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkov_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkov_Commander
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  There is also Dos Navigator, a slower and bigger clone of NC.
hestefisk 6y ago
I started my computing career as a 5 yo in Norton Commander on a 8088 Intel machine.
atemerev 6y ago
I still use Midnight Commander on the daily basis. It is immensely useful for e.g. exploring a large codebase. I don’t know why it is frowned upon by many people.
- fb03 6y ago
  I am sure the reason is irrational and involves pseudo geek points for 'hey, i am not using anything graphical at all!' Midnight Commander is awesome and together with Byobu you're all set for full fledged terminal-only speedy filesystem exploration.
- mlukaszek 6y ago
  This. Installing Midnight Commander is one of the first things I do on a fresh *nix system, next to installing vim. :) Heck, I even have it installed on Windows in WSL - it's a life saver, allowing to navigate really fast, as well as connect to remote locations (SCP, SFTP...) to copy files around.
- Yaa101 6y ago
  MC is great but very slow when copying or moving a lot of small files, when I have a task like that I use SpaceFM in the GUI.
- azalemeth 6y ago
  Meant genuinely and with 0% troll: why? What does it get you that ls (-ltr and optionally |less) doesn't? I know that some people love mc and I've never...got it. I've never really asked them in great detail. What are the 'killer features' of MC over the more "usual" *nix tools of find/grep/ls/awk/sed/vim? I'd love to know if I'm missing a trick!
  - blackfawn 6y ago
    What I like most about MC is oddly off by default. Under "Options" > "Panel options" there is an option under "Navigation" for "Lynx-like motion". Once this is on, you can navigate in/out of directory structures with the left and right arrows on your keyboard. It makes it super quick and easy to move around a file system without a bunch of successive cd/ls/etc commands (or other tools)
dt3ft 6y ago
Darn. I loved NC.
stiray 6y ago
I am still using total commander which has proven as by far best gui replacement while I have never found any text based even close (any suggestion is welcome but mc is not it) as far it goes regarding tc tooling and integration of plugins. Or search (and replace) for files etc. I never really understood why something like explorer copies are used on all systems. Anyway if someone wants to try, https://www.ghisler.com/ https://www.ghisler.com/ while here are 3rd party plugins: https://totalcmd.net/ https://totalcmd.net/ There is more than meets the first glance and one huge benefit is that you dont need to use mouse. At all.
- therealmarv 6y ago
  Yep, it's the best but more a successor of Norton Commander. I even miss Total Commander on macOS sometimes. At least Forklift (macOS) does the job also quite well.
- obscura 6y ago
  I've also been using it for years. Its feature range and performance is phenomenal.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Total Commander was one of the tools I really missed when I completely switched to Linux a decade ago. Krusader is nice, but it still pales in comparison and isn't actively developed. I haven't found any other two-pane file managers that are available on Linux and come close in features.
- cryo 6y ago
  I'm currently developing another file manager for macOS, Windows and Linux named 'cryo' which also has a dual-pane mode. It's not yet as future rich as other commanders but hopefully will be in the upcoming months. https://cryonet.io https://cryonet.io
  - stiray 6y ago
    A suggestion, study very closely how plugins in TC work and even more on which places: like file system plugin also working in search dialog. Implement support for TC plugins, you will gain enormous ecosystem for almost free. Check its viewer and find in files options (utf8+utf16+regex+office files and then combining everything with git plugin (or one of other plugins) where commit comment contains something not matching to another regexp. And on top of everything it is very simple to make it happen). Do study TC, it is by far the most complete file manager on any system, in any time and extremely well thought of. There is just nothing that compares beyond "I have two pane file manager". It is visually outdated and it doesn't run on all platforms but it is really really hard to beat in features (like rename all *.cpp in all directories and subdirectories to #filename#-#dateofcreation#-#gitrevision#-#gitbranch#.cpp or use parts of exif header to rename file). I would love to have multiplatform alternative (as I have dumped the windows due to w8 and w10 abominations) for TC but I just dont see how this could be achived without really, REALLY huge engineering effort. You might figure out that it is not worth competing against it for its licence price of 37 euros (27 for students) and "shareware" version without limitations except nag screen.
ExpiredLink 6y ago
On Windows FreeCommander is a good free Commander. https://freecommander.com https://freecommander.com
AdrianB1 6y ago
Norton Commander was in the autoexec.bat of virtually every computer I saw between ~1992 and 1998. Dos Navigator replaced it for a while, then Windows Commander, later renamed to Total Commander. I still have Total Commander pinned to the taskbar of every computer I use, I bought a few dozen licenses back in ~ 2008-2009. In ~ 1994 I wrote a limited feature clone of NC in FoxPro just to show some colleagues in college that it can be done fast and easy. It motivated them to learn FoxPro and a few become developers using it for the next 5-10 years.
- DominikD 6y ago
  Dos Navigator was such a great productivity tool! Guys who made it (Ritlabs) went on to develop TheBat! email client which was also pretty amazing.
AndrewDucker 6y ago
I know someone who still uses ZTreeWin (a clone, for Windows) all the time. It looks incredibly quick, with lots of useful shortcuts.
sydd 6y ago
ahh the only useful product Norton ever released :)
- uvatbc 6y ago
  Norton editor was another masterpiece. Pre acquisition Norton products were amazing.
KingOfCoders 6y ago
LOVED it.
stephankoelle 6y ago
Some people might not be aware that dolphin is pretty good split window file manager.
- mbeex 6y ago
  I have to agree. As a heavy user of Total Commander and fighting the Krusader as well as Double Commander clones for some time, I switched to Dolphin after setting up a KDE-based Linux distribution. Its been years, since I did it the last time and I was quite reluctant. But it worked out much better than I thought in the beginning.
bronlund 6y ago
Who remembers PC Tools? :D I used that a lot back then.
JeanMarcS 6y ago
Norton Commander is the reason I still use Midnight Commander on my servers ! My fingers know all the key shortcuts for decades now
begoon 6y ago
Nimble Commmader (https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander) is the real deal for dual panel managers fanboys with macs.
dang 6y ago
Edit: URL changed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander. This is probably too well-known a topic to justify a generic Wikipedia link. There are better articles available - for example, http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_commander.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_command..., which can be found either by web search or HN search. Perhaps we'll swap that URL in. This issue with Wikipedia submissions has been coming up a lot lately. Recent explanations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23117614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23117614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089041
dang 6y ago
Url changed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander, which points to this.
askariwa 6y ago
I remember Volkov Commander too. From Wikipedia :"Volkov Commander (VC) is a file manager for DOS inspired by the Norton Commander. Volkov Commander is purely written in assembly language, and is thus very small (less than 100 KB) and fast". It was really fast and really small when we had the 1.4 mb floppy disk back then.

67 points by quijoteuniv 6y ago

I remembered about Norton Commander today when I opened a second window of "Files" in Ubuntu to do some tidy up and moving around of files.

soapdog 6y ago
Why not use midnight commander on ubuntu?
- extro 6y ago
  mc is disgusting.
  - fb03 6y ago
    Care to elaborate on that? I use it for navigating quickly and i'm just a C-o away from the unbridled shell. I find it very useful. Also, do you have another command line mc alternative to suggest? I'm always open to try new tools.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
      It fails to do the 'just works' magic. Selecting files, moving them from place to place is always weirdly unpleasant.
- quijoteuniv 6y ago
  Will check it out :)
radoslawc 6y ago
There's quite good Worker file manager: http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/ http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/
1wd 6y ago
Double Commander is another alternative. Open source, cross platform, actively developed (in Free Pascal and Lazarus) https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/ https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/

empressplay 6y ago

Pre-Windows 95 every PC I owned or configured booted into this.

xiphias2 6y ago

FAR manager is still a nice way to manage files in a 2-pane mode on Windows

AtlasLion 6y ago
I still use it daily.
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
Left windows years ago and not looking back, and FAR manager is the only software I miss on Ubuntu. midnight commander doesn't even come close, unfortunately.
- valeg 6y ago
  There is a port of sorts: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l Still an early stage but nonetheless.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

Norton Commander is to DOS as Directory Opus is to the Amiga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus

danielbarla 6y ago
I noted with some interest (now about 20 years ago) that Directory Opus had gotten a Windows version. It still seems to be alive and kicking, which is good to see!

graycrow 6y ago

I have stopped using Windows, but the only software that I miss is a modern NC clone called Far Manager [1]. [1] https://www.farmanager.com/ https://www.farmanager.com/

LeoPanthera 6y ago
Have you tried Midnight Commander?
- graycrow 6y ago
  Of course, but MC is (to put it lightly) not feature complete :) Ended by using MC, far2l (Far Manager 2 Linux clone) and Far Manager 3 under Wine depending on a task, but nothing can compare to native Far on Windows.
atemerev 6y ago
Far for Linux now works well. But I have adapted to mc since then.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  TIL Far for Linux exists! Will go check it out now.

_ZeD_ 6y ago

Still using Total commander on my android phone

mbeex 6y ago
IMO, this port is subpar. Ghislers original is "the best thing since sliced bread", I'm using it for more than ~20 years and it is the first software I have on USB flash drive or install (copy) to a new Windows machine. But the mobile version never clicked for me. I'm using X-plore on Android for ~2 years now and I'm quite happy with it. It is also the only app I could find, that supports Windows shares in a rather hassle-free way.

klaustopher 6y ago

I was always a fan of XTree[1], was always more intuitive to me than norton commander. Still have the shortcuts in muscle memory `xtg` for the win [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree

RoryH 6y ago
Came here to basically say this :-)
ghaff 6y ago
I liked Xtree. I actually had my own DOS file manager (Directory Freedom) but that was deliberately kept very small and fast. I liked Xtree for when I wanted to look at or work with the whole directory structure.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> It was published by Underwear Systems, later Executive Systems, Inc. Beautiful.

kasperni 6y ago

Sweet memories... [1] is a great walk down memory lane. [1] http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_commander.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_command...

dusted 6y ago

I never used NC much, but I recall a friend of mine having a DOS PC that booted into it.. When I first ventured into linux, I was not good with the command line, and was very pleased to find MC, it helped me a lot until I got the hang of the CLI.

graycrow 6y ago

There also was Volkov Commander (VC) - a faster and smaller clone of NC. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkov_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkov_Commander

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
There is also Dos Navigator, a slower and bigger clone of NC.

hestefisk 6y ago

I started my computing career as a 5 yo in Norton Commander on a 8088 Intel machine.

atemerev 6y ago

I still use Midnight Commander on the daily basis. It is immensely useful for e.g. exploring a large codebase. I don’t know why it is frowned upon by many people.

fb03 6y ago
I am sure the reason is irrational and involves pseudo geek points for 'hey, i am not using anything graphical at all!' Midnight Commander is awesome and together with Byobu you're all set for full fledged terminal-only speedy filesystem exploration.
mlukaszek 6y ago
This. Installing Midnight Commander is one of the first things I do on a fresh *nix system, next to installing vim. :) Heck, I even have it installed on Windows in WSL - it's a life saver, allowing to navigate really fast, as well as connect to remote locations (SCP, SFTP...) to copy files around.
Yaa101 6y ago
MC is great but very slow when copying or moving a lot of small files, when I have a task like that I use SpaceFM in the GUI.
azalemeth 6y ago
Meant genuinely and with 0% troll: why? What does it get you that ls (-ltr and optionally |less) doesn't? I know that some people love mc and I've never...got it. I've never really asked them in great detail. What are the 'killer features' of MC over the more "usual" *nix tools of find/grep/ls/awk/sed/vim? I'd love to know if I'm missing a trick!
- blackfawn 6y ago
  What I like most about MC is oddly off by default. Under "Options" > "Panel options" there is an option under "Navigation" for "Lynx-like motion". Once this is on, you can navigate in/out of directory structures with the left and right arrows on your keyboard. It makes it super quick and easy to move around a file system without a bunch of successive cd/ls/etc commands (or other tools)

dt3ft 6y ago

Darn. I loved NC.

stiray 6y ago

I am still using total commander which has proven as by far best gui replacement while I have never found any text based even close (any suggestion is welcome but mc is not it) as far it goes regarding tc tooling and integration of plugins. Or search (and replace) for files etc. I never really understood why something like explorer copies are used on all systems. Anyway if someone wants to try, https://www.ghisler.com/ https://www.ghisler.com/ while here are 3rd party plugins: https://totalcmd.net/ https://totalcmd.net/ There is more than meets the first glance and one huge benefit is that you dont need to use mouse. At all.

therealmarv 6y ago
Yep, it's the best but more a successor of Norton Commander. I even miss Total Commander on macOS sometimes. At least Forklift (macOS) does the job also quite well.
obscura 6y ago
I've also been using it for years. Its feature range and performance is phenomenal.
luckylion 6y ago
Total Commander was one of the tools I really missed when I completely switched to Linux a decade ago. Krusader is nice, but it still pales in comparison and isn't actively developed. I haven't found any other two-pane file managers that are available on Linux and come close in features.
cryo 6y ago
I'm currently developing another file manager for macOS, Windows and Linux named 'cryo' which also has a dual-pane mode. It's not yet as future rich as other commanders but hopefully will be in the upcoming months. https://cryonet.io https://cryonet.io
- stiray 6y ago
  A suggestion, study very closely how plugins in TC work and even more on which places: like file system plugin also working in search dialog. Implement support for TC plugins, you will gain enormous ecosystem for almost free. Check its viewer and find in files options (utf8+utf16+regex+office files and then combining everything with git plugin (or one of other plugins) where commit comment contains something not matching to another regexp. And on top of everything it is very simple to make it happen). Do study TC, it is by far the most complete file manager on any system, in any time and extremely well thought of. There is just nothing that compares beyond "I have two pane file manager". It is visually outdated and it doesn't run on all platforms but it is really really hard to beat in features (like rename all *.cpp in all directories and subdirectories to #filename#-#dateofcreation#-#gitrevision#-#gitbranch#.cpp or use parts of exif header to rename file). I would love to have multiplatform alternative (as I have dumped the windows due to w8 and w10 abominations) for TC but I just dont see how this could be achived without really, REALLY huge engineering effort. You might figure out that it is not worth competing against it for its licence price of 37 euros (27 for students) and "shareware" version without limitations except nag screen.

ExpiredLink 6y ago

On Windows FreeCommander is a good free Commander. https://freecommander.com https://freecommander.com

AdrianB1 6y ago

Norton Commander was in the autoexec.bat of virtually every computer I saw between ~1992 and 1998. Dos Navigator replaced it for a while, then Windows Commander, later renamed to Total Commander. I still have Total Commander pinned to the taskbar of every computer I use, I bought a few dozen licenses back in ~ 2008-2009. In ~ 1994 I wrote a limited feature clone of NC in FoxPro just to show some colleagues in college that it can be done fast and easy. It motivated them to learn FoxPro and a few become developers using it for the next 5-10 years.

DominikD 6y ago
Dos Navigator was such a great productivity tool! Guys who made it (Ritlabs) went on to develop TheBat! email client which was also pretty amazing.

AndrewDucker 6y ago

I know someone who still uses ZTreeWin (a clone, for Windows) all the time. It looks incredibly quick, with lots of useful shortcuts.

sydd 6y ago

ahh the only useful product Norton ever released :)

uvatbc 6y ago
Norton editor was another masterpiece. Pre acquisition Norton products were amazing.

KingOfCoders 6y ago

LOVED it.

stephankoelle 6y ago

Some people might not be aware that dolphin is pretty good split window file manager.

mbeex 6y ago
I have to agree. As a heavy user of Total Commander and fighting the Krusader as well as Double Commander clones for some time, I switched to Dolphin after setting up a KDE-based Linux distribution. Its been years, since I did it the last time and I was quite reluctant. But it worked out much better than I thought in the beginning.

bronlund 6y ago

Who remembers PC Tools? :D I used that a lot back then.

JeanMarcS 6y ago

Norton Commander is the reason I still use Midnight Commander on my servers ! My fingers know all the key shortcuts for decades now

begoon 6y ago

Nimble Commmader (https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander) is the real deal for dual panel managers fanboys with macs.

dang 6y ago

Edit: URL changed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander. This is probably too well-known a topic to justify a generic Wikipedia link. There are better articles available - for example, http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_commander.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_command..., which can be found either by web search or HN search. Perhaps we'll swap that URL in. This issue with Wikipedia submissions has been coming up a lot lately. Recent explanations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23117614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23117614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089041

dang 6y ago

Url changed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander, which points to this.

askariwa 6y ago

I remember Volkov Commander too. From Wikipedia :"Volkov Commander (VC) is a file manager for DOS inspired by the Norton Commander. Volkov Commander is purely written in assembly language, and is thus very small (less than 100 KB) and fast". It was really fast and really small when we had the 1.4 mb floppy disk back then.