Yet another file manager I didn't know about is the portable BonCommander, but FreewareWorldTeam wrote me about it today:

About BonCommander

BonCommander is simple file manager application with FTP client functionality for Microsoft Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

BonCommander features:
simple user interface, similar to other programs of this type (Total Commander, Norton Commander, FAR manager etc.)
fast navigation using keyboard and hot-keys
built-in FTP client
build-in simple text file viewer
it doesn't use Windows registry for configuration, thus it can be used as "portable" application - just copy BonCMD.exe (and optionally also HLP and INI files) to USB flash-disk and use it on different computers
interface in English language
absolutely free software - it contains no ads, no spyware, no adware and no toolbars

http://boncmd.php5.cz/about.php

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Looks like a good deal... hummm...

Jim

Sorry about that, I had missed the Doantion Coder offer.

Colin

Have tried many different one. NONE is best. Like Opus, but... WAY too expensive!

I vote for Total Commander. I really like the Total Commander WebDAV plugin as it makes it very easy to access my WebDAV server. I have no clue why people still use FTP servers when they can use WebDAV. Unlike FTP, WebDAV bypasses proxies and firewalls. It is also easy to use WebDAV in secure mode i.e. HTTPS.

Did you know that file managers like Total Commander are called an Orthodox file manager?

The standard file managers are just for newbie’s.
The built in file manager in Mac really sucks 

I am using Dopus in my Windows desktop.  I also use TC at times, but I could never get quite comfortable with its GUI to use it as a full-time Explorer replacement. I have a few plugins in it but some are tough for me to get working correctly.  They DO have a forum with some helpful users but I find that a lot are very knowledgeable about scripts and such and don't like to explain much to the untrained masses!    I have used the FTP module in it and it is easy to setup and use. However one thing I noticed was that I could easily disconnect accidentally - one button that I kept thinking would return me to another view/lister or whatever its called in TC was actually the "Disconnect" button, but it was labeled something else - can't remember exactly what. But there are a few terms in TC that apparently don't translate well from German to English.

As for a Mac, it's been a long time for me:  I had an Apple II, a IIc, and a IIe waaaay back. Also the original LISA (Mac forerunner) and the first Mac.  Well, not the first they made, but the first model!  I am considering a Power Mac for a notebook now - I need a new one - but so many of my most frequently used programs are Windows only. I know about Parallel but I keep seeing a lot of complaints from users.  Decisions, decisions!  Gates is eventually going to make up my mind for me - he has me almost there now!

Jim

There are a few that befuddle me every time I look for them.  Going by memory (so some may be approximations - or what I think I remember!), I think "Refresh" is called "Reread Source", and "Sort" is called something else also -- maybe "Order files" or something like that?  Also he doesn't use anything close to the old MS standard of menubar titles: File, Edit, View, etc.  So I never know which menu to look in for a given command.  Can't remember which menubar menu, can't remember what he calls the commands....  I just can't remember much of anything anymore!

Actually when I used it all the time I got used to it.  But when you're away from it for a while they become "lost" all over again!

Jim

I tried the UP edition and it was just way too much for me - it has everything and the kitchen sink!- I spent about 2 hours removing stuff (especially stuff that seemed to be in czech?) then decided I was too much of a "no clutter" person. I love the idea of everything integrated (that is "low clutter") but when you have to scroll 2 screens on the "network connections" page to find your drives below all the "stuff" then that is clutter.

I think it was a major shame that the "network connections" is the place where all extensions can be added - it does create clutter and does not allow for much orgaisation. Almost everything ends in there and you end up removing useful things just because they are in the way too often - they are useful now and then but they push the stuff you use every day down the list and that is a pain. This is of course a TC design decision, not TCUP's fault.

I did like the way certain things were integrated, a lot, but too many things were integrated and it was not easy enough to remove them. So I noted down the programs I liked best and will try to integrate them myself, looking at the code etc.

It did remind me how customisable total commander is, although it also brought another point to me: that i havent bothered to learn any software extension syntax in ages. Not even when I have niggles and "i wish"-es which I am sure some scripting in some of the software I own could help. The problem is, which one. There are so many, they all claim to be wonderfully extensible and configurable (and yet experience tells me most will fall short), they all have a very clumsy "language" (why does almost every developer think he can create a "language"?)

Every tool nowadays seems to come with its extension syntax, your file manager, your editor, your email program, your browser, your utilities, your games etc etc etc. As a result, in the end, I end up not trying to figure out a single one - too many, too different, and which to choose, usefulness too uncertain. So in the end I bother to learn none. Not total commander extensions, not ahk, not the modified javascript in wirekeys etc etc etc.

And the same seems to go with frameworks and new languages. I tend to shrug them off and think "if it is still here in 2 years maybe i'll pay attention". Maybe it is that so much that gets raved about turns out to be not-much-new when looked at closely. I'm turning into a cynical old coder, pretty soon I'll be quirping "LISP had this already in the 60s" anytime someone mentions something new (although first I should really properly learn and understand lisp... on my todo list since... well... not the 60s but it feels forever anyway)

Oops, this is turning into a rant and doesnt belong here. Maybe I'll post a rant in a new thread later 

Anyway I am very grateful to TCUP for refreshing my memory as to how to fix/modify my total commander, and making me discover aimp2 

Amen to that, brother... I have an iBook with 10.2 on it here at home and was helping my dad migrate from OS9 to 10.5 yesterday - I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to find stuff in either version of the Mac OS (ie 9.22 or 10.5). I've been looking at 3rd party File Managers and there are some nice ones out there, it seems. I don't have any links on hand, but I'll investigate and report back... someday 

That would be great. I am really missing a good Orthodox file manager for Mac OS X.

At least OS X is UNIX so I use the command line most of the time.

PS to above - J-Mac, you can install the monthly roll-up of TC UP features over previous installs.

EDIT: PPS - thanks for those Mac links, Lashiec  Pathfinder was one of the ones I'd been looking at, hadn't heard of Forklift.

Sorry, J-Mac - I dont' seem able to communicate in "complete thoughts" today - just asks my victi er, students from this morning's lecture 

TC UP installs into it's own directory, so you can have both it and TC installed separately (this is what I've done - I am in the minority in quite liking the vanilla version). OR you can specify a separate directory (can't remember quite how it worked when I installed, but I'm pretty sure that it defaulted to c:\program files\TC UP... All  you then need to do is to copy the licence key file into the TC UP directory and it will run licenced as well...

Other - Power Desk