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Poll

Which File Manager do you rely on in Windows?

Windows Explorer
Directory Opus
Total Commander
XYPlorer
xplorer2
Altap/Servant Salamander
Frigate
Speed Commander
AB Commander
Haven't decided yet.
Other
Variety is the spice of life - I use mutliple File Managers!!
Power Desk

Last post Author Topic: What's your preferred File Manager  (Read 456447 times)

J-Mac

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #250 on: April 19, 2008, 10:01 PM »
I've gone back with Total CMD  :Thmbsup: The most powerfull file management :). Xyplorer is simple and cool but it doesn't have dual pane and great plugins :p

I've had TC for years, and I do love it for some of the things it can do.

Regrettably, however, I have never been able to customize it to look and act act as I would like it to do.  I think it actually CAN be customized as I would like - I have seen screenshots from others - but I've never had the time it takes to research it.  I belong to their forum but nothing seems to be as simple as it would have to be for me to be able to do it fairly easily.

One of these days....

Jim

lanux128

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #251 on: April 19, 2008, 11:58 PM »
Regrettably, however, I have never been able to customize it to look and act act as I would like it to do.  I think it actually CAN be customized as I would like - I have seen screenshots from others - but I've never had the time it takes to research it.  I belong to their forum but nothing seems to be as simple as it would have to be for me to be able to do it fairly easily.

J-Mac: what are the features that you can't activate with TotalCmd? just curious.. :)

J-Mac

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #252 on: April 20, 2008, 02:21 AM »
Hi lanux!

Oh, not that much - Just looks and functionality!!  No, there is a lot I can do, but generally it's interface is SO different than most file explorers that I get stumped a lot and need to end up opening another one.  Little everyday things like trying to access features that I am used to accessing from a right-click context menu. I start out needing to do something relatively routine and find myself spending 10 to 30 minutes rummaging around in the TC Help file, and then another 20 minutes or so looking around the TC forums.  Then I realize I have spent well over an hour sitting at my computer trying to find out how to accomplish something that I could have done in 30 seconds using even the Windows Explorer interface!!  So I open that or DOpus or whatever and do it and close TC, not to open it for another month or two.

Been that way for 6 years now! Other similar tasks also.  I'll decide that I need to have folder sizes available in the panes and then I am off again looking for that one, single plugin that allows you to do that. Of course the plugins - which are very useful - are not documented well at all and I end up spending wayyy too much time looking and not enough time doing.

Am I coming across clear?  Or like mud?

TC is just SO much different in how you access and do things that some users can easily outspend their available time looking for instructions for what should be very simple tasks.  Certainly does not help that the Help file is in the old, old Microsoft .HLP format, where you can look at the contents, then clicking on a topic expands to a standalone window and if you need to look for another possibly related topic you must close that window and go back to the contents. They have come out with newer Help formats to make the user experience easier, but many older programs stayed with the first help file they ever created - 10 or more years ago - and then just add to it as time and development goes on.

If I had the time to spend a couple days doing nothing but re-learning Total Commander oddities, I could probably use it more effectively.  But I usually give up once I have spent more time trying to find out "How" than the initial task would have taken!

Any advice is appreciated, though, as always!

Thanks!

Jim

Steven Avery

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #253 on: April 20, 2008, 01:01 PM »
Hi Folks,

NexusFile 5.0 Beta 7

Here is one from Korea,    JungHoon Noh (earlier version listed as Gendreau Patrice on NoNags, perhaps a change) that is worthy of a look-see.  Uses some nice color-coding, which I like  :) . Help file is still in Korean.  A couple of postive Snapfiles and NoNags reviews .  Apparently developement stopped in 2002 and restarted in 2007.

NexusFile
http://www.xiles.net/

Shalom,
Steven

kartal

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #254 on: April 20, 2008, 01:47 PM »
Nexus looks and feels very nice and it is very easy to use .It has one flaw thou. it does not have an internal viewer :(

Steven Avery

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #255 on: April 20, 2008, 01:59 PM »
Hi Kartal,

Thanks for looking, your ahead of me.  I'm writing on my cleaner puter and do little downloading on this one until I'm pretty sure of a product for my own use.  :)

It looked like there were some pics that showed a viewer.  Maybe on his site, maybe Nonags, somewhere.  So if it has a setting to make something like IrfanView the viewer, wouldn't that be sufficient and ok ?  In my experience that is all these things need, although I know at times they run into various issues with the viewer software about usage (license, copyright, etc).  However there should be a good freeware viewer available for all the basics, with a setting. Maybe.

Shalom,
Steven

kartal

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #256 on: April 20, 2008, 02:22 PM »
It has alot of features and functionalities like setting number of columns. I think that it is a well designed free file manager alternative. Also it opens very quickly which is a big plus.  But it is folder tree is slow compared to others I have used.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2008, 02:24 PM by kartal »

lanux128

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #257 on: April 20, 2008, 09:13 PM »
Oh, not that much - Just looks and functionality!!  No, there is a lot I can do, but generally it's interface is SO different than most file explorers that I get stumped a lot and need to end up opening another one.  Little everyday things like trying to access features that I am used to accessing from a right-click context menu. I start out needing to do something relatively routine and find myself spending 10 to 30 minutes rummaging around in the TC Help file, and then another 20 minutes or so looking around the TC forums.  Then I realize I have spent well over an hour sitting at my computer trying to find out how to accomplish something that I could have done in 30 seconds using even the Windows Explorer interface!!  So I open that or DOpus or whatever and do it and close TC, not to open it for another month or two. ...

actually this sounds familiar, for i have used totalcmd from time to time. i did recently downloaded version 7.02 and was quite surprised that the interface is now quite stream-lined with the  standard Windows UI but nevertheless, i'm not going to ditch my Salamander anytime soon. :)

222fbj

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Try xiles.net - NexusFile - excellent *****
« Reply #258 on: April 23, 2008, 06:04 PM »
Ive been a xplorer2 user for awhile - but just came across Nexusfile - it is the best IMHO.
Give it a try - no install version available - just unzip.





nosh

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #259 on: April 24, 2008, 01:33 AM »
I found the advanced rename feature better when I tried it. Nexusfile is off to a decent start but it has a LONG way to go if it intends to match the versatility of xplorer2, or any other successful, time-tested file manager for that matter. 

cathodera

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #260 on: May 05, 2008, 05:36 AM »

I used Power Desk for years and years, but discovered in The Great Upgrade that 5 didn't work as well on XP, and I looked at 6 but it was just so big and bloaty, so I tried a whole mess of them and most of the time now I use a43 http://www.primitus.us/ but occasionally I will use ultraexplorer or the freeware version of the xplorer2 thing.

I don't like any of the norton-inspired double pane ones, though I respect all faith traditions.

In the olden days, I liked xtree best.
One man's conspiracy is another man's business plan

rjbull

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #261 on: May 06, 2008, 03:39 AM »
In the olden days, I liked xtree best.

You can still have ZTree Win   :)

And here's the XTree Fan Page

« Last Edit: May 06, 2008, 05:30 AM by rjbull »

cathodera

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #262 on: May 06, 2008, 06:04 AM »

Oh Thank You! I had no idea there was an xtree fan page!

What a delightful walk down memory lane!

I am learning so much here!
One man's conspiracy is another man's business plan

yksyks

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #263 on: May 06, 2008, 11:03 AM »
Wow! I was getting afraid that I'm the only ZTreeWin user here! Good to hear I'm not alone. I can't imagine better and faster file manager, that's why I mentioned it throughout this forum every now and then.

For me ZTreeWin is not a memory, but a daily reality--you could hardly find my PC without at least one instance of it running, and I'm carrying it with me everywhere, otherwise I'd feel lost.

rjbull

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #264 on: May 07, 2008, 03:47 AM »
For me ZTreeWin is not a memory, but a daily reality--you could hardly find my PC without at least one instance of it running, and I'm carrying it with me everywhere, otherwise I'd feel lost.

All the easier because it has effectively a personal license  :)



Darwin

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #265 on: June 16, 2008, 06:41 PM »
Just to note: I've uninstalled all but two of 16 file managers. I'm left with DOpus 9 and XYPlorer installed... I *think* I suffer from the symptoms described in this article:

http://www.eurekaler...-06/cp-wmi060608.php

Because I'm a bit of a packrat where books and software are concerned  :o

LordDaMan

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #266 on: June 16, 2008, 11:34 PM »
My current favorite file manager is Vista's explorer + qttabbar. The fact it forgets folder settings annoy me, but the sorting and grouping options seems to be far better then any other alternative.

I also sometimes use q-dir
http://www.softwareo...seite=Software/Q-Dir

That one is really interesting, . It's multi pane and uses the same "engine" as windows explorer does. So under say vista you not only have all the views explorer does, you also have the same sort and grouping abilities. Plus it has color coding too. It's a little ugly and strange at pars, but over all it's a rather handy file manager. It even has one of the weirdest ways to install. Either run the downloaded program to install, or rename the installer file to q-dir.exe to run the file manager in portable mode

I also use muCommander sometimes.
http://www.mucommander.com/

Pretty standred orthodox file manager, except it has an option to browse a web address as a virtaul file system

Curt

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #267 on: July 10, 2008, 07:54 AM »
# http://www.se-soft.com/ # Freeware # .NET Framework 2.0 required #

Brand new kid on the block:

6se-icon.pngSmart & Easy Software6se-icon.png   


SE-Explorer is a free simple and powerful file manager for Windows

Main Features:

    * Two file windows side by side
    * Enhanced search function
    * Tabbed interface
    * A lot of build-in viewers
    * Portable version available

Built-in viewers:

    * Picture viewer which supports most popular image file formats
    * Audio player with playlists support
    * Text editor with syntax highlighting
    * RTF file viewer
    * Browser window for local HTML's preview
    * Hex editor for binary files
    * XML structure view

   
Installation EXE File ~440 KB
Portable Version ZIP Archive ~180 KB

Version: 0.0.19.401
Release Date: 09 July 2008
Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is required

File Manager:
1FileManager-List.PNGWhat's your preferred File Manager


File Searching:
2FileSearch.PNGWhat's your preferred File Manager


View Images:
3FileView-Image.JPGWhat's your preferred File Manager


Play Audio:
4FileView-Audio.PNGWhat's your preferred File Manager


View Xml:
5FileView-Xml.PNGWhat's your preferred File Manager


SE-Explorer is absolutely free for personal use. No registration or activation is required

Plans for nearest future:

    * Implement web-based update system
    * Support different views in File Search window
    * Add text searching capabilities to Text Viewer

History:

2008 July 09. New version (0.0.19.401) has new text view with hilighting, updated network browser and improved File Manager Tree style.
2008 June 28. New version (0.0.18.396) has thumbnails/icons/details views in File Manager. Also PSL and M3U playlists are supported.
2008 June 20. The first version (0.0.17.365) is uploaded to the site
http://www.se-soft.com/

Perry Mowbray

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #268 on: July 10, 2008, 08:22 AM »
NexusFile 5.0 Beta 7

http://www.xiles.net/
-Steven Avery (April 20, 2008, 01:01 PM)

Just wanted to say thanks for reminding me of this one Steven. I'm sure I'd downloaded and tried it at some stage previously, but it has been a real joy reacquainting myself with this software.

It really does have a lot under the hood, and it does take a little to get used to the keymappings.

kartal

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #269 on: July 10, 2008, 09:47 AM »
UltraExplorer 2 is in beta, go grab it.

http://www.mustangpe...2/viewforum.php?f=19


kartal

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #270 on: August 03, 2008, 11:19 PM »
This one seems like a deadware? Their sites has not been updated since 2005 and their forums spammed heavily.

I use 'File Notes Organizer 3'  see here.  http://www.filenotes.com/

Excellent programme

Lutz_

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager - AC Browser Plus
« Reply #271 on: August 04, 2008, 05:58 PM »
Well this is not my preferred file manager, but it is almost:

AC Browser Plus

http://www.konradp.com/products/acbplus/

This browser is basically free and has many of the coolest and helpful features aiding in file management.  Just for example, the three last used files in any folder are automatically highlighted; it has FTP integration, great multithreading of move and copy operations, fast image browsing, very nice breadcrumb navigation, editorial renaming is ingenious ( edit the file names in a folder like a text in texteditor), it is scriptable, ......   the cool tools,  there are soo many.
Furthermore, the program is stable  (the looks could be polished a bit, though).

So, why is this not my favorite?
AC Browser Plus has a unique windowing philosophy; it does not use the standard dual-pane approach; but instead you can open as many independent browser windows inside the main window as you want. Whoever likes this approach, should absolutely use this program; it is fantastic otherwise (I always thought one uses a filemanager to get rid of the multiple explorer windows ;) ).  For me, multiple windows quickly become a mess that is simply too annoying to navigate.  I sincerely hope a "standard" tabbed dual pane interface can be added to this program. It has great potential.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2008, 06:52 PM by Lutz_ »

Dormouse

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #272 on: August 04, 2008, 06:40 PM »
This browser is basically free

I see that there is a free version limited to 3 windows, but in what way is the main version basically free?

Lutz_

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #273 on: August 04, 2008, 07:35 PM »
I see that there is a free version limited to 3 windows, but in what way is the main version basically free?

Hello Dormouse,
I have found this limitation to be only of virtual nature.

Dormouse

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Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« Reply #274 on: August 05, 2008, 01:55 AM »
Ah, so the registration just really buys support and lifetime upgrades. I assume that the reason for the free version is that he intends the main one to becime paid for at some stage. I'll give it a look.