8 ms·

Neo-mc – a Midnight Commander fork with scripting and other features

152 points by URfejk 6y ago

abiogenesis 6y ago
It's worth noting that Midnight Commander started as a clone of Norton Commander [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  Which still is very useful in a DosBox.
  - megous 6y ago
    I also remember M602 and Volkov Commander from those days.
    - qwerty456127 6y ago
      I used Volkov Commander when I needed long file names support. What is M602?
      - megous 6y ago
        File manager for MS-DOS (from a Czech company S602) that I used the most, probably. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana%C5%BEer_M602 https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana%C5%BEer_M602
    - abiogenesis 6y ago
      There is also the Star Commander [1] which supports Commodore 64 disk images and physical drives using the X1541 interface [2]: [1] https://sta.c64.org/sc.html https://sta.c64.org/sc.html [2] https://sta.c64.org/xcables.html https://sta.c64.org/xcables.html
mbergal 6y ago
Although not a console app, Far2l [1] is a clone of Far Manager [2] and is just great both on Mac or Linux [1] https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l [2] https://www.farmanager.com/ https://www.farmanager.com/ And I think that Far Manager is the best 2 panel file manager ever.
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  Awesome but buggy. I tried using it (I mean on Linux) and it crashed quickly.
  - singalen 6y ago
    Report it, then. I've been happily using it for the last 3 years on my Mac. It had a few crashes, some were fixed by the port author, some by me.
- singalen 6y ago
  Correction: a fork, not a clone.
qwerty456127 6y ago
How do I navigate to the same directory which is opened in the other panel or to a root of a particular device (a USB drive or a hard drive partition) quickly? These are the 2 things I use heavily in all the "commanders" but couldn't find in MC. Lack of these makes it useless for me as I hate manually crawling the global file system every time I want to switch a drive.
- lozf 6y ago
  According to the "File" menu, the shortcut for "Quick cd" is `M-c` ( Alt and c). Works well, no tab-completion alas, but quick enough to get to /mnt or /media or where ever.
xvilka 6y ago
Lately I switched from mc to vifm[1][2]. It's ncurses-based two-panel file manager with vi-like navigation. Quite recommend for those who use vim daily. [1] https://vifm.info/ https://vifm.info/ [2] https://github.com/vifm/vifm https://github.com/vifm/vifm
mpol 6y ago
I see this is mostly about the editor MCedit, not the dual-pane filemanager itself. Does anyone know if the contributors of this fork ever talked to the current maintainers of mc? Since the fork of mc about 10 years ago, there has come a lot of new features and bugfixes into mc the filemanager. I would assume they are open for contributions. Anyone, I really love this Midnight Commander, It is maybe my most important and most used piece of software :)
- lumpa 6y ago
  He also has MC with Python scripting: https://github.com/psprint/mc https://github.com/psprint/mc Edit: and is submitting at least some code upstream e.g. https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4160 https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4160
- smartmic 6y ago
  > Does anyone know if the contributors of this fork ever talked to the current maintainers of mc? Yes, and there was a kind of dispute about this. The gist of it can be found in this ticket: https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4187 https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4187 EDIT: Interesting read also about the pros and cons of Slang2 as scripting language, some history and the job of maintaining mc in general …
  - mpol 6y ago
    Interesting read, thank you. So there is also a plugin system in Lua waiting, it just needs someone to care for it. The S-lang plugin system will not go in mc itself since they prefer to get rid of S-lang alltogether, in favor of ncurses as screen library. This same author had a Python plugin system first, but scrapped it in favor of this S-lang plugin system. And yes, I can imagine they are looking more for people doing maintenance instead of innovators. They do seem genuine nice guys though.
    - iudqnolq 6y ago
      This sort of language seems a bit uncalled for to me > gee, look - a 3rd contender for a scripting integration ... and the 2nd from you, heh. i guess you're retracting #4136 then? > how does this compare in size with moofie's lua stuff? that's what the integration question mostly hinges on, i think. > according to trac's diff view, the indentation in the patch is somewhat random. how did you even manage to do that ...? :} >> Am I doing something wrong? > yes - not doing enough meditation. :D no, seriously, you need patience. a lot of it.
BozeWolf 6y ago
Voting this up, because mc is great and deserves more attention. Sometimes cp/mv/rm or grep just are not sufficient. Mc is great for browsing your filesystem quickly and for example copy partial content of certain directories only. I use it on macos and even on my vps. Using it since windows xp - when i switched to linux from scratch ;-) That said, i am not sure what this fork adds. I know a lot of mc tricks, i use it a few times a week. But im not a shell, editor, whatever customizer anyways. So not sure if i would miss scripting. I like it if stuff works out of the box, which mc already does! A few screenshots of those editing features would help. And maybe contribute some of those new features to the main project. Anyways, nice job!
- NotPavlovsDog 6y ago
  Seconded! A double panel file manager is a very convenient concept, strongly suggest those that have not tried it do so! I mostly use the core feature of organizing files such as downloads, moving from one folder to another; sorting by size, date, etc, for a quick overview. What would your tricks be?
  - rnd0 6y ago
    cd ftp://<whatever address> and then copying files remotely to whatever local location is my personal favorite. I just tried and it also works for sftp as well! Though it doesn't seem to read ~/.ssh/authorized_keys -so you have to enter your password each time. But typing something like cd sftp://<server>/<directory> is a great way to access my unsupported (no guest additions) virtual machines from WSL There's one snag with ctrl-o; it only works for Linux consoles and xterms. It doesn't appear to work with a BSD (or whatever) console -at least it always gives me errors.
  - tux1968 6y ago
    Not sure if it really qualifies as a trick, but the game changer for me was <ctrl-o>. Being able to pop into and out of MC from the shell, even while in the middle of typing a command is great. It's easy to ignore if the command line suffices, and instantly available when helpful.
- 6y ago
thom 6y ago
Missed opportunity to call it Midnight Captain.
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  Neo MC has that cool Hip-Hop vibe though
smlckz 6y ago
Neomutt, Neovim... and now Neo MC!! Where is the Neo Emacs?
- mhd 6y ago
  XEmacs is pining for the fjords.
- talhah 6y ago
  I doubt Neo Emacs' existence, emacs is very extensible and rather than a separate fork you'd get something like Spacemacs[0] which builds over the default Emacs distribution. https://www.spacemacs.org https://www.spacemacs.org
- kh_hk 6y ago
  https://github.com/emacs-ng/emacs-ng https://github.com/emacs-ng/emacs-ng
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Maybe guile emacs?
  - xvilka 6y ago
    It looks abandoned and dead (sadly).
- eointierney 6y ago
  https://github.com/remacs/remacs https://github.com/remacs/remacs and yep it's in rust
- tarkin2 6y ago
  And what happens when another dev can’t think of a name for their clone? What do they do then? Name it Neoneomc? The dev should have gone down the less-more-most route. Midnight commander, Twilight commander, Dusk commander, Midnight Admiral, Twilight Mutiny... I may give ‘mc’ a try again. Never bothered before.
  - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
coolreader18 6y ago
Just something I noticed, the way that "neo" is "spelled" in the README (הϵѻ) would be pronounced /heo/, i.e. "heyo" :)
boboche 6y ago
I miss diskmasher on ye ol workbench.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  xtree gold
Pxtl 6y ago
I'm pretty new to heavy console-based Linux adminning - I just have a raspbian pi4 I'm using for a bunch of local services around my house, but I've gotten pretty comfy editing files and tweaking services and chmodding/chowning. However, I refuse to climb the learning cliff of Vi, but nano is... Okay at best? Is mcedit a good option? I'm still just doing everything from shell and nano.
- adamweld 6y ago
  If you're interested in becoming proficient text editing in the shell, I highly recommend just biting the bullet and learning the basics with vim. It's significantly less of a "cliff" than you'd expect. Just spend a few minutes running through the built-in tutorial (vimtutor), learn how to save and open files and move around the document, and set a few defaults in your config. Only about 30 minutes of effort will be enough to make it much easier to use than nano, in my opinion. Then over time you can learn what makes it powerful, play with mouse control, check out neovim, etc...
  - lilyball 6y ago
    There’s also https://vim-adventures.com/ https://vim-adventures.com/ which is a neat way of learning Vim by playing a game.
  - indigodaddy 6y ago
    Upvoting/seconding this. It doesn’t take as much effort/pain as you think it will. Don’t believe the FUD. That said, plain old vi on older Solaris systems is still a pain in the ass lol.
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      Vim is lovely, I always install Vim plugins in all editors. Pxtl, just be careful so you don't get stuck in Ex mode o.O
  - ilaksh 6y ago
    30 minutes of effort will NOT make vim much easier to use than nano. That's ridiculous. People, get your mind out of the 1970s and check out the micro editor.
StreamBright 6y ago
I wish somebody created Volkov Commander for modern computers. I need exactly that much functionality. Just two fixed sized panels (50/50) and the ability to navigate in the folder structure. Nothing else.
- smartmic 6y ago
  I do not know Volkov Commander but have a look at the simple file manager, it basically does exactly what you describe: https://github.com/afify/sfm https://github.com/afify/sfm
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
For those who enjoy history: http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch04/mc.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch04/mc.shtml
sfy 6y ago
Although MC is great, I really like Ranger, and its somewhat faster sister LF, which is written in Go.
rad_gruchalski 6y ago
Total commander is the one and only windows app I miss on a mac. I know there are “clones” but none of them comes close to TC.
- jamesvl 6y ago
  I love Total Commander on windows as well - one of the first things I install. Graphically, have you tried Double Commander? It's multi-platform Qt app; while I don't know how well is behaves on Mac OS, it's fantastic in Linux.

152 points by URfejk 6y ago

It's worth noting that Midnight Commander started as a clone of Norton Commander [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander

qwerty456127 6y ago
Which still is very useful in a DosBox.
- megous 6y ago
  I also remember M602 and Volkov Commander from those days.
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    I used Volkov Commander when I needed long file names support. What is M602?
    - megous 6y ago
      File manager for MS-DOS (from a Czech company S602) that I used the most, probably. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana%C5%BEer_M602 https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana%C5%BEer_M602
  - abiogenesis 6y ago
    There is also the Star Commander [1] which supports Commodore 64 disk images and physical drives using the X1541 interface [2]: [1] https://sta.c64.org/sc.html https://sta.c64.org/sc.html [2] https://sta.c64.org/xcables.html https://sta.c64.org/xcables.html

mbergal 6y ago

Although not a console app, Far2l [1] is a clone of Far Manager [2] and is just great both on Mac or Linux [1] https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l [2] https://www.farmanager.com/ https://www.farmanager.com/ And I think that Far Manager is the best 2 panel file manager ever.

qwerty456127 6y ago
Awesome but buggy. I tried using it (I mean on Linux) and it crashed quickly.
- singalen 6y ago
  Report it, then. I've been happily using it for the last 3 years on my Mac. It had a few crashes, some were fixed by the port author, some by me.
singalen 6y ago
Correction: a fork, not a clone.

qwerty456127 6y ago

How do I navigate to the same directory which is opened in the other panel or to a root of a particular device (a USB drive or a hard drive partition) quickly? These are the 2 things I use heavily in all the "commanders" but couldn't find in MC. Lack of these makes it useless for me as I hate manually crawling the global file system every time I want to switch a drive.

lozf 6y ago
According to the "File" menu, the shortcut for "Quick cd" is `M-c` ( Alt and c). Works well, no tab-completion alas, but quick enough to get to /mnt or /media or where ever.

xvilka 6y ago

Lately I switched from mc to vifm[1][2]. It's ncurses-based two-panel file manager with vi-like navigation. Quite recommend for those who use vim daily. [1] https://vifm.info/ https://vifm.info/ [2] https://github.com/vifm/vifm https://github.com/vifm/vifm

mpol 6y ago

I see this is mostly about the editor MCedit, not the dual-pane filemanager itself. Does anyone know if the contributors of this fork ever talked to the current maintainers of mc? Since the fork of mc about 10 years ago, there has come a lot of new features and bugfixes into mc the filemanager. I would assume they are open for contributions. Anyone, I really love this Midnight Commander, It is maybe my most important and most used piece of software :)

lumpa 6y ago
He also has MC with Python scripting: https://github.com/psprint/mc https://github.com/psprint/mc Edit: and is submitting at least some code upstream e.g. https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4160 https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4160
smartmic 6y ago
> Does anyone know if the contributors of this fork ever talked to the current maintainers of mc? Yes, and there was a kind of dispute about this. The gist of it can be found in this ticket: https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4187 https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/4187 EDIT: Interesting read also about the pros and cons of Slang2 as scripting language, some history and the job of maintaining mc in general …
- mpol 6y ago
  Interesting read, thank you. So there is also a plugin system in Lua waiting, it just needs someone to care for it. The S-lang plugin system will not go in mc itself since they prefer to get rid of S-lang alltogether, in favor of ncurses as screen library. This same author had a Python plugin system first, but scrapped it in favor of this S-lang plugin system. And yes, I can imagine they are looking more for people doing maintenance instead of innovators. They do seem genuine nice guys though.
  - iudqnolq 6y ago
    This sort of language seems a bit uncalled for to me > gee, look - a 3rd contender for a scripting integration ... and the 2nd from you, heh. i guess you're retracting #4136 then? > how does this compare in size with moofie's lua stuff? that's what the integration question mostly hinges on, i think. > according to trac's diff view, the indentation in the patch is somewhat random. how did you even manage to do that ...? :} >> Am I doing something wrong? > yes - not doing enough meditation. :D no, seriously, you need patience. a lot of it.

BozeWolf 6y ago

Voting this up, because mc is great and deserves more attention. Sometimes cp/mv/rm or grep just are not sufficient. Mc is great for browsing your filesystem quickly and for example copy partial content of certain directories only. I use it on macos and even on my vps. Using it since windows xp - when i switched to linux from scratch ;-) That said, i am not sure what this fork adds. I know a lot of mc tricks, i use it a few times a week. But im not a shell, editor, whatever customizer anyways. So not sure if i would miss scripting. I like it if stuff works out of the box, which mc already does! A few screenshots of those editing features would help. And maybe contribute some of those new features to the main project. Anyways, nice job!

NotPavlovsDog 6y ago
Seconded! A double panel file manager is a very convenient concept, strongly suggest those that have not tried it do so! I mostly use the core feature of organizing files such as downloads, moving from one folder to another; sorting by size, date, etc, for a quick overview. What would your tricks be?
- rnd0 6y ago
  cd ftp://<whatever address> and then copying files remotely to whatever local location is my personal favorite. I just tried and it also works for sftp as well! Though it doesn't seem to read ~/.ssh/authorized_keys -so you have to enter your password each time. But typing something like cd sftp://<server>/<directory> is a great way to access my unsupported (no guest additions) virtual machines from WSL There's one snag with ctrl-o; it only works for Linux consoles and xterms. It doesn't appear to work with a BSD (or whatever) console -at least it always gives me errors.
- tux1968 6y ago
  Not sure if it really qualifies as a trick, but the game changer for me was <ctrl-o>. Being able to pop into and out of MC from the shell, even while in the middle of typing a command is great. It's easy to ignore if the command line suffices, and instantly available when helpful.
6y ago

thom 6y ago

Missed opportunity to call it Midnight Captain.

pantalaimon 6y ago
Neo MC has that cool Hip-Hop vibe though

smlckz 6y ago

Neomutt, Neovim... and now Neo MC!! Where is the Neo Emacs?

mhd 6y ago
XEmacs is pining for the fjords.
talhah 6y ago
I doubt Neo Emacs' existence, emacs is very extensible and rather than a separate fork you'd get something like Spacemacs[0] which builds over the default Emacs distribution. https://www.spacemacs.org https://www.spacemacs.org
kh_hk 6y ago
https://github.com/emacs-ng/emacs-ng https://github.com/emacs-ng/emacs-ng
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Maybe guile emacs?
- xvilka 6y ago
  It looks abandoned and dead (sadly).
eointierney 6y ago
https://github.com/remacs/remacs https://github.com/remacs/remacs and yep it's in rust
tarkin2 6y ago
And what happens when another dev can’t think of a name for their clone? What do they do then? Name it Neoneomc? The dev should have gone down the less-more-most route. Midnight commander, Twilight commander, Dusk commander, Midnight Admiral, Twilight Mutiny... I may give ‘mc’ a try again. Never bothered before.
- 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

coolreader18 6y ago

Just something I noticed, the way that "neo" is "spelled" in the README (הϵѻ) would be pronounced /heo/, i.e. "heyo" :)

boboche 6y ago

I miss diskmasher on ye ol workbench.

Brian_K_White 6y ago
xtree gold

Pxtl 6y ago

I'm pretty new to heavy console-based Linux adminning - I just have a raspbian pi4 I'm using for a bunch of local services around my house, but I've gotten pretty comfy editing files and tweaking services and chmodding/chowning. However, I refuse to climb the learning cliff of Vi, but nano is... Okay at best? Is mcedit a good option? I'm still just doing everything from shell and nano.

adamweld 6y ago
If you're interested in becoming proficient text editing in the shell, I highly recommend just biting the bullet and learning the basics with vim. It's significantly less of a "cliff" than you'd expect. Just spend a few minutes running through the built-in tutorial (vimtutor), learn how to save and open files and move around the document, and set a few defaults in your config. Only about 30 minutes of effort will be enough to make it much easier to use than nano, in my opinion. Then over time you can learn what makes it powerful, play with mouse control, check out neovim, etc...
- lilyball 6y ago
  There’s also https://vim-adventures.com/ https://vim-adventures.com/ which is a neat way of learning Vim by playing a game.
- indigodaddy 6y ago
  Upvoting/seconding this. It doesn’t take as much effort/pain as you think it will. Don’t believe the FUD. That said, plain old vi on older Solaris systems is still a pain in the ass lol.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    Vim is lovely, I always install Vim plugins in all editors. Pxtl, just be careful so you don't get stuck in Ex mode o.O
- ilaksh 6y ago
  30 minutes of effort will NOT make vim much easier to use than nano. That's ridiculous. People, get your mind out of the 1970s and check out the micro editor.

StreamBright 6y ago

I wish somebody created Volkov Commander for modern computers. I need exactly that much functionality. Just two fixed sized panels (50/50) and the ability to navigate in the folder structure. Nothing else.

smartmic 6y ago
I do not know Volkov Commander but have a look at the simple file manager, it basically does exactly what you describe: https://github.com/afify/sfm https://github.com/afify/sfm

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

For those who enjoy history: http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch04/mc.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch04/mc.shtml

sfy 6y ago

Although MC is great, I really like Ranger, and its somewhat faster sister LF, which is written in Go.

rad_gruchalski 6y ago

Total commander is the one and only windows app I miss on a mac. I know there are “clones” but none of them comes close to TC.

jamesvl 6y ago
I love Total Commander on windows as well - one of the first things I install. Graphically, have you tried Double Commander? It's multi-platform Qt app; while I don't know how well is behaves on Mac OS, it's fantastic in Linux.