File Managers Commander

Orthodox file managers or "Commander-like" file managers have three windows (two panels and one command line window).

Orthodox file managers are one of the older families of file managers. They develop and further extend the interface introduced by John Socha's famous Norton Commander for DOS. The concept is more than twenty years old as Norton Commander version 1.0 was released in 1986. Despite their age they are actively developed and dozens of implementations exist for DOS, Unix and Microsoft Windows. A public standard (version 1.2 dated June 1997) is available from Nikolai Bezroukov's website.

Features

The following features define the class of orthodox file managers.

* They present the user with a two-panel directory view consisting of one active and one passive panel. The latter always serves as a target for file operations. Panels are shrinkable and if shrunk they expose the terminal window hidden behind them. Normally only the last line of the terminal window (the command line) is visible.
* They provide close integration with an underlying OS shell via command line and associated terminal window that permits viewing the results of executing the shell command entered on the command line (e.g., via Ctrl-O shortcut in Norton Commander).
* They provide the user with extensive keyboard shortcuts.
* The file manager can be used without or with minimal use of the mouse.
* Users can create their own file associations and scripts that are invoked for certain file types and organize these scripts into a hierarchical tree (e.g., as a user script library or user menu)[citation needed].
* Users can extend the functionality of the manager via so called User menu or Start menu and extensions menu. Norton Commander introduced the concept of user-defined file associations that is now used in all modern file managers[citation needed].

Other common features include:

* Information on the "active" and "passive" panels may be used for constructing commands on the command line. Examples include current file, path to left panel, path to right panel, etc.
* They provide a built-in viewer for (at least) the most basic file types.
* They have a built-in editor. In many cases, the editor can extract certain elements of the panels into the text being edited.
* Many support virtual file systems (VFS) such as viewing compressed archives, or via an FTP connection.
* They often have the word commander in the name.

An orthodox file manager typically has three windows. Two of the windows are called panels and are symmetrically positioned at the top of the screen. The third is the command line which is essentially a minimized command (shell) window that can be expanded to full screen. Only one of the panels is active at a given time. The active panel contains the "file cursor". Panels are resizable. Each panel can be hidden. Files in the active panel serve as the source of file operations performed by the manager. For example, files can be copied or moved to the passive panel. This gives the user the ability to use only the keyboard with the convenience of the mouse interface. The active panel shows information about the current working directory and the files that it contains. The passive (inactive) panel shows the content of the same or other directory (the default target for file operations). Users may customize the display of columns that show relevant file information. The active panel and passive panel can be switched (often by pressing the tab key). Other user interface elements include:

1. Path: shows the source/destination location of the directory in use
2. Information about directory size, disk usage and disk name (usually at the bottom of the panels)
3. Panel with information about file name, extension, date and time of creation, last modification, permissions (attributes) and other
4. Info panel with number of files in directory, sum of size of selected files..
5. Tabbed interface (usually GUI file managers)
6. Function keys: F1–F10 have all the same functions under all orthodox file managers: Example F5 always copies file(s) from active to inactive panel, while F6 moves the file.


* Alt Commander
* Altap Salamander
* Directory Opus
* Dos Navigator
* Double Commander
* Explorer++
* FAR Manager
* File Commander
* FreeCommander
* Krusader
* Midnight Commander
* muCommander
* Norton Commander
* PathMinder
* Nomad.NET
* PowerDesk
* Risingware Exp+
* SE-Explorer
* Total Commander
* Volkov Commander
* WinSCP

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What is a File Extension?

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Data Recovery Machine

Have you ever wondered how a data recovery machine looks like? It's a well known rumour that data recovery specialist have machines that copy the platters. Reading data directly from the platters and transfering the data to a conventional hard drive.

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