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What's your preferred File Manager
Innuendo:
When the links were still working I contacted Novatix and was informed that ExplorerPlus was written by the person who wrote/compiled the original and earlier versions of PowerDesk (before it got sold to a number of companies like VCOM Avanquest etc).
History (taken from a horses mouth source): ExplorerPlus was originally released in 2003 and was a Novatix Corporation product. In May of 2005, however, that Novatix Corporation officially changed its name to SendPhotos, Inc. and that was where you could find ExplorerPlus being supported until just recently (late 2006). (A new different Novatix was also formed whose focus was solely on behavior-based security products.)-IL1keT0Donate (January 15, 2010, 12:40 AM)
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Yes, I am quite familiar with the story, but thanks for posting it here for those who didn't know. I was too lazy to type all that out. I'd love to see the author come back and release a new file manager. It'd be interesting to see what new tricks he would come up with.
But although ExplorerPlus was a great file manager and possibly even better or more reliable than PowerDesk v6 or v7, I doubt that it works glitch free in Windows 7 32 bit (and don't even think about 64bit).
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Oh, definitely. It wasn't 100% glitch-free on XP, its target platform, but it did some neat stuff & did it rather well, too.
I like to see all file & foder details (not just icons or listings) and also see true file sizes not round ups. I'd like a dialog tracker to find recently opened files & folders, quick viewer pane and an indexing search engine built into the program if possible.
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You sound like your needs lean towards being a power user so I would suggest you start your search with looking at Directory Opus, XYplorer, and Total Commander.
I feel need to point out that after installing Total Commander it will appear to be the most sparse regarding features. This is very misleading as it is rather like Firefox in that its functionality can be extended through plugins. Everything can be changed including the toolbar icons & even the pull-down menus. It is definitely the cadillac of orthodox file managers (orthodox being the term to describe all file managers that are clones of Norton Commander).
If something more Explorer-like is more to your tastes then concentrate on Directory Opus and XYplorer. Directory Opus is approximately as configurable and as extensible as Total Commander, but unfortunately, it is priced quite high.
XYplorer has just recently had a significant price increase so you may want to check out the pricing on that before you proceed, but at least the author offers a lifetime license (as does Total Commander).
There are numerous freeware choices available as well (like Free Commander), but I will let others cover those. None of the ones I briefly tried could stack up to my crazy OCD-level criteria.
Any of these should handle your list of criteria except for perhaps the built-in indexing search engine. I don't think any file manager I have ever seen (and I have trialed well over 40) has one of those. However, there is a plugin for Total Commander that allows it to interface with Locate32.
More:
Windows Explorer mostly, sometimes Far
Darwin:
Obviously i like Directory Opus the most. :Thmbsup:
-lele0124 (February 03, 2010, 09:14 PM)
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Er, why should this be obvious :huh:
J-Mac:
OK, I just have to ask this once again; I've asked here and elsewhere in the past and have never gotten very good replies.
I purchased Total Commander - oh, about 20 years ago, it seems. Well, actually it was probably sometime in 2003, right around the time Christian was forced by MS to change the name from Windows Commander. License was sent via postal mail on a 1.44 MB floppy!
Anyway, though I still use TC for certain functions I have never been able to comfortably adopt it as my default, daily-use file manager. The UI is just different enough to confound me when I try to use it for all things file-related. I keep hearing - everywhere but also in this thread, all throughout - that the plug-ins make TC extremely configurable. While that may be technically true I have never found the TC plug-in system to be friendly at all. To the contrary as a matter of fact! I would search for plug-ins - they were once spread all over the web though now most are kept on one site - and install a few that sounded useful but then had to install and configure them within TC. ANd there were never any clear instructions for that. Instructions, yes; clear? Well, not exactly crystal - and I pretty much need "crystal" clear!
If my plug-ins did not work as expected I would post in the TC forum - which in itself has been a trip at times; I've had three separate usernames there. (Christian used to delete the usernames that were not active frequently!) Most of the time when I did post I would get a lot of advice; unfortunately not much of it agreed with other advice in the same thread. Oftentimes I would find out that the plug-ins I installed were not current; I was told I shouldn’t have used those but instead should have used others. It was always confusing enough to drive me back to something else.
Yet I continually see posts here about how easy TC customization is. What am I missing? Or does it require a lot of tweaking, constant tweaking?
Thanks for comments.
Jim
Innuendo:
Yet I continually see posts here about how easy TC customization is. What am I missing? Or does it require a lot of tweaking, constant tweaking?-J-Mac (February 07, 2010, 12:57 AM)
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I would have thought fenix would have jumped on this reply by now, but since I have just stumbled upon it I'll relate my experience. I've used Total Commander for years. I even used it for years before it was renamed Total Commander from Windows Commander, but I mostly just used it for basic things & had a few (5-7 or so) highly recommended plugins. Once I won a free license here on DonationCoder I resolved to start using TC in earnest.
First thing I did to achieve my goal was I browsed the two major sites for Total Commander plugins & utilities (http://www.totalcmd.net and http://en.totalcmd.pl) while keeping in mind what functionality I'd like to see in TC. I downloaded the strongest candidates in each plugin category for comparison later.
I also downloaded some non-plugin stuff like petermad's excellent extended menu for TC (adds functionality & breaks up the menus a little differently than stock), Plugin Manager (will keep track of your plugins for you & will even install & uninstall them effortlessly) and Ultra TC Editors.
After I did that I headed over to http://www.ghisler.ch and read up in the plugin sub-forum to see if there were any last caveats or recommendations against the plugins I had chosen to use.
I won't lie to you. All this took a whole afternoon to set up, installed and get going properly. However, it was a one-time thing & I'll never have to do it again as just backing up your TC directory will preserve your entire setup for eternity. Now I just stop by those three web sites every couple weeks to see if there are any updates to the things I'm using & any updated components unzip and install in a matter of seconds.
In case you're curious at the end of my search I've got 41 plugins installed and co-existing peacefully, but my journey has just begun. I still have a lot to learn about the built-in functionality of TC & when I find myself on Google searching for something to manipulate a file I stumble across a post on http://www.ghisler.ch and find out that TC can do it already.
So, yeah...you're going to spend some time up front getting everything set up the way you want, but once you do it's going to make your file management chores so much easier & save you much more time in the long run.
I'm far from an expert, but I'll help you get up to speed as best I can if you'd like.
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