OFM Bulletin, Vol 9 (2005)

The Krew is pleased to announce the release of the first beta in the 1.70.0 series. Introducing many new, expert features as well as many operational and visibility enhancements. With this release Krusader is heading straight to its second milestone, bringing a feature rich file manager with new technologies and standards to the Linux desktop. We would like to thank the developers, translators, and the rest of the community for keeping us sharp, for beta testing and using our file manager and for your feedback, which makes this product one of the greatest.

Highlights:

• Drastic improvement of performance when opening folders with lots of files
• Remote encoding menu for fish, ftp and sftp protocols
• Text search in files displays the first line with keywords in a search window
• Various integrated checksum calculating and verifying tools
• Colorful user interface of many elements such as synchronizer
• Tab oriented internal editor with syntax highlighting
• And many, many more that you can find in our changelog...

[Oct 6, 2005] Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 10a

Servant Salamander has archive support (zip, arj, rar, ace, tar/gzip, etc.),  HTML, and picture (over 40 formats - jpg, gif, bmp, pcx, tga, tiff, etc.) viewers, powerful file searching, changing case of file names, and character set coding (support for national charsets). The Full version includes the Eroiica Viewer and WinSCP plug-ins. This is a free time limited beta testing version. It will expire on February 1, 2006. Next beta version or the final version 2.5 will be available for download before this expiration date.

Features	Version 2.5	Version 2.0	Version 1.52
License	Commercial	Commercial	Freeware
Number of formats supported by viewers	90	45	2
Archives support (packing, unpacking)	•	•
Toolbars, mouse oriented user interface	•	•
Background operations, Thumbnails mode	•
FTP, SCP, SFTP Client	•
Number of pluion. Next Servant Salamander versions Copy/Move/Delete operations: display estimated time and transfer speed. Tree view, Quick view, Information view. Browsing network neigborhood in panel. Better Windows shell integration: file associations, context menus. Structured and unlimited Hot Paths. Synchronize directories command. Icon overlays (TortoiseCVS, TortoiseSVN). Tabbed browsing. Duplicate command. Support for nested archives, searching in archives. Option to extract whole archive before executing file. Unpack multiple archives by one command. Background operations for archives. UNICODE support, UTF-8, UTF-16 (file names, viewers, find, convert). Full row select for Find window, Windows Explorer like selection in panels. Find on file systems (FTP, SFTP, SCP, Windows Mobile, Registry). Folders browser in panel (My Computer, Desktop, Control Panel, Recycle Bin, etc.) Custom panel columns (parsers for EXIF, MP3 bitrate, Access Time, etc.) Ctrl+PgDn for opening self extract archives or unassociated archives. Syntax highlighting for internal viewer (C/C++, PHP, HTML, JAVA, etc.) LPT/COM/TCP tunnel for file transfers between two Servant Salamanders. New file system plugin for Symbian mobile devices. And much much more...

Midnight Commander 4.6.1 has been released. Better late then never.

freshmeat.net Project details for Jfilerunner

Jfilerunner is a file manager for Unix systems. It features file associations in which a user can define actions to take when double-clicking a particular type of file, a running history of directories navigated, with simple history navigation, the ability to bookmark favorite directories, the ability to download a file from the Web via HTTP. There are multi- threaded file and GUI operations, and the ability to change the Look And Feel dynamically.

Release focus: Minor feature enhancements

Changes:
An additional version is available that uses the NiceSTEP classes for a NeXTSTEP/GNUstep look and feel. The ability to view and extract the contents of Java jar files was added. The View button will view the contents of archive files (jar, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, tar.Z, zip) instead of viewing them as text files. The external unzip program is no longer needed for viewing or extracting zip files. Improvements were made in panel updating, file selection, and fonts.

[Jul 3, 2005] mc-4.6.1-pre5 is available from Ibiblio

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/utils/file/managers/mc/mc-4.6.1-pre5.tar.gz

- Security.
	- Fixed CAN-2003-1023 (stack overflow in vfs_s_resolve_symlink).
	- Fix CAN-2004-0226 (buffer overflows).
	- Fix CAN-2004-0231 (unsafe temporary file and directory creation).
	- Fix CAN-2004-0232 (format string vulnerablities).
	- Full audit of quoting of parameters in vfs scripts (CAN-2004-0494).
	- Hiding of FTP passwords.
	- cons.saver does not need to be setuid-root on Linux.

- Core functionality.
	- Better large file support (int -> off_t)
	- Fix X11 connection handling.
	- Fix blocking of panel cd-ing with white space command.
	- Use 8bit input as default.
	- Add implementation to cons.handler for FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x.
	- Screen saving is now supported on FreeBSD console.
	- Improve support for tcsh.
	- User is warned if one mc is run from another.
	- Fix mini status after first Ctrl-O.
	- In red dialog boxes draw the hotkey characters with a color
	  different than the one used to paint the dialog.
	- Better support for '@' in FTP usernames.
	- Fix double free in mc_maybe_editor_or_viewer().
	- Do not blindly cleanup in exit_subshell().
	- Fix dynamic loading of Photon library for shift keys.
	- libX11 is loaded dynamically using gmodule if possible.
	- Background support now uses pipes instead of UNIX sockets.
	- Add gnome, rxvt and xterm-new terminals (keyword copy for mc.lib).
	- Make the find dialog more responsive while scanning through large
	  files.
	- Hide temporary commands from history.
	- Add --with-glib12 option to configure to force using glib 1.2.x.
	- Add --disable-background option to disable background support.

- Portability.
	- Added configuration files for Sun Solaris pkgmk(1).
	- Improve support for QNX Neutrino.
	- PC port has been removed.
	- Support for SCO UNIX has been removed.

- Editor.
	- Support for large syntax files.
	- Add syntax file for the x86 assembler, the Vision(tm) Ray Tracer,
CORBA IDL, LUA, ASP.NET, Eiffel, Ruby and C#.
	- Improve c.syntax, makefile.syntax, python.syntax, eiffel.syntax
syntax.syntax, php.syntax file, sql.syntax file, perl.syntax,
diff.syntax and makefile.syntax.
	- Fix position save bug.
	- Fix bugs for mcedit compiled with ncurses.
	- New status string format in mcedit.
	- Temporarily disable safe save and backups on remote VFS because it
	  doesn't work.
	- Enable user menu in mcedit.

- Viewer.
	- Add .7z archives extensions to mc.ext.in.
	- Add OpenOffice.org 2 extensions to mc.ext.in.
	- Recognize both .udeb and .deb as Debian packages.

- Screen libraries.
	- Internal slang upgrade to 1.4.9.
	- Add many boundary check into internal slang library.
	- Backport S-Lang fixes from HEAD.
	- Increased maximum screen size to 512 x 512.
	- Add support for qansi-m terminals.

- VFS.
	- Extensive samba cleanup.
	- Fix possible crash on broken cpio archives.
	- Quote fixes in urar.in.
	- Full audit of quoting of parameters in vfs scripts (CAN-2004-0494).
	- Fixed CAN-2003-1023 (stack overflow in vfs_s_resolve_symlink).
	- Various fixes in tar.c.
	- VFS supports iso9660 images.
	- extfs/rpm: Don't show the package's contents directly in the root
	  directory, but only as an archive called contents.cpio.

- Translations.
	- New translations: Mongolian, Serbian and Lithuanian.
	- Updated translations: German, Spanish, Ukrainian, Italian and
Hungarian.

[Jun 9, 2005] Linux Today - Community Krusader on the Move

Although Krusader still needs a lot of work to match TC the progress is evident with the release of version 1.6. "Popular URLs idea is definitely a good one...

With this release of Krusader, the need for a Linux TC port has become obsolete! The Krusader Krew showed once more that they can satisfy user requests, feedback, and "fine tuning"; and make significant product innovations simultaneously!

Perhaps the most major enhancement of the Krusader is the "User Actions" system, which was incrementally introduced in the past few releases. User Actions are user specified scripts for common tasks or file operations. These scripts are already readily available via the Right-Click Menu, but with new version can also now be added to the Special Actions Toolbar that resides below the Menu, or even as common User Menu entries.

The Special Actions Toolbar can also utilize Bookmarks! This combination of functionality, easily at hand, makes Krusader 1.6 the most User Friendly file manager available for Linux! The biggest advantage of the User Action scripts is that they can be easily added or modified, and you do not have to be a programmer to work with them! But if you happen to be a programmer, the "User Actions" dialog allows for quick and easy import, export, or advanced editing of scripts and batch files. In depth information about using and writing your own User Actions can be found in Krusader Handbook.

... ... ...

"Popular URLs" is functionally similar to "Bookmarks", but contains a weighting system to rank the URLs actually visited, whether you have assigned the URL a Bookmark or not! In "Popular URLs", the URLs are not stored in a "bookmark view" but have ranked entries based on visitation frequency drawn from the History file. The "Popular URLs" feature is particularly helpful for online research, programming projects, and for those who use the Internet in their daily work. You can "pick up where you left off" without having to bookmark dozens of pages that you may not visit regularly after the current project is completed. The "Popular URLs" list is, by design, dynamic, and self-updating! This type of listing has many advantages over "regular" bookmarks for speed and reviewing, and enables the overall Bookmark System to manage local and remote, and temporary and permanent, web destinations in a more organized, granular, efficient manner.

... ... ...

Virtual Filesystems are basically a container for URL's from different file systems used in the "feed to listbox" feature of the search module. Actions that are performed on the "Virtual Filesystem" files are performed on the real files, wherever they reside. This means that deleting files from the "Virtual FS" also deletes them from your hard drive, NFS drive, etc.! The "Virtual Filesystem" is only virtual in that it makes files from different locations and media appear to be in one "virtual" location, with Krusader mediating the details of how to "get to" each specific file to carry out the desired file operations ordered by the User.

On the other hand, Virtual Folders *do not* work with the actual files, but rather with virtual files and only the last action manipulates the files. Check the Krusader Handbook for more details on the distinctions between these two "virtual" file management features.

The most fascinating implementation, in terms of usage, that comes with the new release is "Disk Usage", based on the Filelight. The Disk Usage feature shows you how your disk space is being used, using a graphical representation of your file system. There are several viewing options: The "Overview" is possible in simple line view where occupied space is color-coded and ranked, the "Detailed View" contains additional information about files and folders, and finally "Filelight View", which shows a set of concentric segmented-rings representing your entire filesystem.

The biggest advantage of "Disk Usage" is the ability to set the starting point of the display tree. Any user on the system can easily check how much space his files occupy while Administrators (root) can easily check how much space individual users are using on the system. The "Ringed View" is also useful for a quick overview of the server directory structure. Disk Usage can be executed as a stand-alone function, or from inside the 3rd panel of Krusader.

[June 8, 2005] MC_4_6_1_pre4 was released by Pavel Shirshov.

I've created a new cvs tag MC_4_6_1_pre4 and deleted MC_4_6_1_PRE5A
since it had a wrong version number. I've created a new tarball based
on MC_4_6_1_pre4 - it can be found here: http://pavelsh.pp.ru/mc/

[Apr 8, 2005] Commander by Michael Vinther      

File management utility and image viewer. The program has an effective split screen interface with two directory views or a directory view and a file viewer.
The image viewer can launch MeeSoft Image Analyzer for editing images.

• Easy interface for copying and moving files/folders.
• Directory contents size overview.
• Extract files from RAR and ZIP archives.
• FTP client.
• Text and hex file viewer.
• View BMP, WMF, EMF, JPEG, PNG, MNG, GIF, PCX, ICO, CUR and HIPS images. If MeeSoft Image Analyzer is installed, JPEG 2000, TIFF, RAS, PNM, PGM and PPM images are also supported.
• Image thumbnail view
• Auto scaling and enhancement of images suitable for browsing large pictures from e.g. digital cameras.
• Compare directory contents.
• Automatic rule-based renaming of files
• Keyboard shortcuts compatible with Norton Commander
• Search for identical files by name, size, timestamp and/or contents.
• Search for nearly identical image files.
• Advanced "pocket" calculator with equation solver.

[Apr 6, 2005] Total Commander - Download Total Commander for Windows CE/Pocket PC!

• Download the pocket version. Freeware!

[Apr 4, 2005] Lexan Software Inc. Palm Commander 

Actually modern Palms with 200 Mhz CPU and 32M of memory are much more powerful computers that XT with 1M of memory and now some of them accept flashcards (Tangstren E, etc)  that can be up to 1G. So it might make sense to use them with a commander if you have a separate keyboard.

PalmOS File Manager, Preferences Editor, Benchmark Test, Button Launcher, Program Zipper, System Info.

[Mar 25, 2005] Community: Krusader File Manager for Almost-Geeks

Most graphical operating systems use single-window file management as their default. The reason might lie in the idea that most of their users prefer using a mouse over a keyboard.

On the other hand, real geeks use the command line, since that way they won't have to bury themselves in thousands of opened windows. Programmers found out ages ago that there can be a middle path for the file management. Thus, the two-panel paradigm was born and it has its own philosophy: orthodox file management or OFM.

While Norton Commander ruled the past and Total Commander may rule the Windows world, there is still no real winner on Mac and *nix systems. I will not go into the Mac since I'm not an OS X user, but for *nix users, there might be a good explanation for this lack of OFM applications.

Not long ago, all *nix users were all geeks--only in recent days have ordinary users started looking at open alternatives. Among these ordinary users there are a lot of so-called power-users that can do sharp things, but still need a GUI to feel comfortable. Windows already had this special group of users, while Linux is still battling for them.

The open source community serves a lot of commander-type applications, but none of them yet prevailed. The reason might be because of dispersed programming where, everyone rather starts his own project in his spare time, then joins a software group with a decently evolved program.

One such group that was established for such a purpose and which will probably prevail on KDE, is the Krusader Krew. Their manager project, called Krusader, is an advanced two-panel commander-style file manager for KDE with two panels, command line, predefined function buttons and extensive keyboard shortcuts, terminal emulator, and robust icons on the toolbar.

Krusader has the standard look and feel of all OFMs on every OS. What makes it special in the Linux world is not these standard features, but many extras. Krusader supported tabbed panels even before its Windows rival did, as well as extensive archive handling, user mounting, SMB and FTP protocols, advanced search, directory synchronization, file content comparisons, powerful batch renaming, and on-key root mode. It is (almost) completely customizable, fast and looks great on your desktop, as the authors put it.

Krusader is getting complete, but its authors have even more tricks up their sleeves.

In mid July, Krusader 1.40 introduced:

• file splitter,
• directory synchronization,
• quick search,
• folder history,
• and color support for different file types.

Three months later in 1.50, which is still hot:

•  preview popup panel for quick view of media files and documents came to life and customizable panel looks were added.
• User actions gave users the power to personalize and automate work and sync-browsing and panel profiles made a work and customization a breeze.

An in-depth look at Krusader shows some interesting solution possibilities. The GUI is quite colorful and most of the icons combine mouse or keyboard features. Krusader has right-clickable context menus that allow you to do fast operations with the mouse, too. The most important context features can be used to discover the available commands. The most useful ones compare directories and file contents. In combination with synchronization, this makes Krusader a powerful tool.

The developers have also made it easy to send a file as an attachment through email.

Krusader has an implementation of internal viewer called KrViewer, which can handle different file formats and actually uses Konqueror code. This means that it can view every file type viewable by Konqueror. When the file type cannot be determined or when a file is not associated to any action, it disables the 'generic viewer' and the file is treated as a text file. Viewing dovetails well with editing. Krusader's internal editor has almost everything what you can expect of an editor.

Krusader is deeply integrated with KDE. This might be the only real drawback for users that use GNOME, XFce, or other desktop environments, but in the apt-get world even that is not a problem, since all dependencies get resolved instantly.

This short review cannot completely show the whole usefulness of this application. If you want more information, you can join the Krusader forum or browse their extensive documentation site.

Related Stories:
Release Digest: KDE, November 1, 2004(Nov 02, 2004)
Release Digest: KDE, October 18, 2004(Oct 19, 2004)

[Mar 23, 2005] Krusader - Twin Panel File Management For Your Desktop  is a strong GUI-based competitor to MC.

Perfect for SUSE as it is based on KDE. Unfortunately the authors sometimes forget, that any function should be invocable by keyboard, but still it is the GOFM for Linux. Functionality reminds Total Commander and its relation to MC reminds competition between FAR and Total Commander in Windows space.  Right now due to crisis in development of mc, Krusader deserves a second look:

.. is an advanced twin panel (commander style) file manager for KDE 3, similar to Midnight or Total Commander (formerly Windows Commander), with many extras. It provides all the file-management features you could possibly want.

Plus: extensive archive handling, mounted filesystem support, FTP, advanced search module, viewer/editor, directory synchronisation, file content comparisons, powerful batch renaming and much much more.

It supports the following archive formats: tar, zip, bzip2, gzip, rar, ace, arj and rpm and can handle other KIOSlaves such as smb or fish. It is (almost) completely customizable, very user friendly, fast and looks great on your desktop! :-)

You should give it a try.

Features:

• Configurable Main Toolbar and key-bindings.
• Supported archives : ace, arj, bzip2, gzip, iso, lha, rar, rpm, tar and zip.
• Advanced search module that can search in archives.
• Directory comparison and filtering.
• (Pre)View and Tree panels.
• Remote Connections e.g. FTP/SAMBA with SFTP/SCP support.
• Open a Terminal e.g. Konsole to the browsed path.
• Built-in Terminal emulator.
• A Command Line capable of running something in a terminal with a single click of a button.
• Bookmark-Manager.
• Easy editing of file permissions.
• Shows the effective permissions for the current user.
• Calculates occupied space by marked files and folders.
• Internal viewer and configurable editor.
• Completely supports drag'n'drop: drag from Konqueror straight into a .tar.gz file, from Krusader's panel into the trash-bin, the desktop or into Konqueror!
• Packs (or unpacks) files into a single archive of your choice without typing a single command.
• Tests the integrity of archives.
• Compare files by content (via external diff program such as Kompare, kdiff3 or xxdiff).
• Fully mimetype-aware (with or without magic!).
• Built-in Mount-Manager MountMan.
• Krename support, a very powerful external batch renamer for KDE
• Folder tabs