Baslinux mailing list

[Lee Forrest <lforrestster AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 09:10:47PM +0200, Karolis Lyvens wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 08:54:50PM +0000, Lee Forrest wrote:
> -snip-
> > To just browse, examine, the file tree, using links (or another
> > inet browser) is simpler, and that's what happens when you enter
> > the alias "d". Links is also an http/ftp/ browser and so you are
> > basically learning to do those things, too, while you browse your
> > files, not a bunch of specialized keyboard shortcuts that have no
> > bearing anywhere else (most of them).
> 
> No bearing to anything else? For someone whose first shell/file manager
> was Norton Commander, I find this your statement pretty strange.
> 
> Norton Commander spawned so many clones that even a new term was coined
> - "Orthodox File Manager". This may be interesting, although i do not
> expect you to read whole of it:
> 
> http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml
> 
> There are many NC clones for DOS, Win32, Win16 and UNIX. I do not think
> that that makes MC (which resembles NC in most ways) so "unsimilar"
> to any other file managet in existence.
> 
> Karolis

Read what I said: I didn't say its keybindings were "unsimilar"
to those of other file managers like it, but to those of any
other kind of application.

I would assume that they were similar to those of programs that
were like it.

I don't care if anyone uses it. Except for these simple facts: If they do,
I can't help them. Any more than if they were using KDE.

And if they do use them, they probably won't be learning the
universal language of linux/unix, which is sh, because the file
manager doesn't require that knowledge.

Elaborate, libncurses file managers like mc are just somewhat
simplified graphical integrated desktop environments, and all
such applications put themselves between the user and the shell.

They seem to be wonderful, but they are quite limited and you end
up doing what their designers want you to do, rather than exercising
the freedom of dealing with the shell directly.

Lee

-- 
BasicLinux: Small is Beautiful
http://www.basiclinux.com.ru