Why I love FAR so much (ASCII movie) [Archive] - Team17 Forum

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CyberShadow
19 Aug 2006, 02:41
Hey, I thought I'd share my thoughts about my favourite software. My #1 software is FAR (http://farmanager.com/)! And not just any FAR - but the FAR I have assembled and configured and have been using for years.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so I made a text demo (sort of an ASCII movie). The movie has about 5000 frames, so that would be 5 million words? :)
I used a program (which I also wrote) called DOS recorder. It records screen movies of text applications (FAR is a console Windows application, don't let the names and looks confuse you) and saves them to specially-designed compressed movies. It can only record applications at 80x25, which is pretty much the cross-platform standard for text screens.
You will need the player to watch the movie. Get the program here:
http://dosrecorder.sourceforge.net/
A Linux player is included as well.
The demo itself is here: http://thecybershadow.net/fardemo/FAR.dm2
For the lazy ones, you can also watch the demo in your web browser. No controls like pausing/rewind/seek/etc though: http://thecybershadow.net/fardemo/
I made a few goofs while recording this. Also, not all features of FAR are presented here, just the ones I use the most. And, I usually use FAR maximized, at the screen size of 128x60 (versus the standard 80x25 at which this movie was recorded).
Let me hear your thoughts, and tell us if your file manager can do nifty tricks which mine can't. ;)

Lex
19 Aug 2006, 05:33
Wow, Vladimir. I've been using FAR since you showed it to me in February or March, I think, and I hadn't discovered nearly a quarter of what you showed in your demo. FAR really is the most intuitive and powerful piece of software I've ever seen.
Apparently, Deadcode uses ZTreeWin, which is a console-based file manager which he says has endless functions, but I don't really see what it has that FAR doesn't. We should get Deadcode to make a video of him using ZTreeWin!

MtlAngelus
19 Aug 2006, 08:03
Holy shizzle. If I ever get into extreme file managing, I'll certainly get a hold of this.

SupSuper
19 Aug 2006, 13:44
Congratulations, you've created overkill.
For the lazy ones, you can also watch the demo in your web browser. No controls like pausing/rewind/seek/etc though: http://thecybershadow.net/fardemo/
Edit: I think the web player gets stuck at the middle of the movie. Blimey. Just use the regular player :PWorked fine for me.

Xinos
19 Aug 2006, 14:07
I have no idea what I'm watching except it's confusing me. How can one even begin to comprehend the amounts of options and menus in that program? First of all I wouldn't know what to use FAR for, except edit all my text files with it rather than notepad.

CyberShadow
19 Aug 2006, 14:59
Congratulations, you've created overkill.
There's no such thing as being too many features in the program, as long as the features you never use don't get in your way and don't take up too many resources. This is the case for FAR. :D
I have no idea what I'm watching except it's confusing me. How can one even begin to comprehend the amounts of options and menus in that program? First of all I wouldn't know what to use FAR for, except edit all my text files with it rather than notepad.
Well, first of all. I don't use Windows Explorer. Ever. With the real rare occasion when I have to drag-and-drop files from Explorer over a stubborn application that won't accept files another way. And I don't use the Explorer shell either (the part of Windows that shows icons on your desktop and the taskbar with the start menu) - I've replaced that with bbLean (http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/) (a version of BlackBox for Windows, which is a port of the Linux desktop manager BlackBox), which is a lot faster, stable, and has actually useful features (plug-in interface). See some screenshots here (http://www.boxshots.org/).
Other than normal file management, you can see that I use FAR to write programs (I never use the bloated IDEs unless I need to debug (which is pretty rare lately) or to paint some buttons on some forms), design web pages (everything on maplecenter.net and thecybershadow.net was done with FAR), view pictures (the picture viewer plugin is amazing, it's as good as ACDSee/etc.'s viewers), preview sound/music files, and perform a multitude of other small stuff. Among other things, FAR can also be used to read e-mail and browse the web, but I found that Opera (http://www.opera.com/) and The Bat! (http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/) do a much better job. But browsers and e-mail clients are another story.
I'd specifically like to hear the opinions of users of Total Commander, ZTreeWin and other file managers. Total Commander comes close to FAR, but it is a GUI program and thus loses to FAR in points like speed, macros etc.

KRD
19 Aug 2006, 15:17
I've used Total Commander on my previous computer and it was enjoyable, but other than batch renaming I've never really used it for anything advanced.
I approve of the Norton Commander look of FAR, but I honestly can't imagine switching to [or from] anything on this laptop, since I rarely do things outside Firefox, Photoshop, Painter, Winamp, PowerDVD, Word and mIRC/Trillian.
However, once I actually have my own computer all will change. I'll toss most of the "industry-standard" applications out and install whatever uses the least resources while still doing the trick, looking good and being stable. bbLean definetley makes the cut, for example. I'll end up keeping Photoshop and Painter, obviously, but switch back to Foobar2000 for music and something slick for video.

M3ntal
19 Aug 2006, 15:18
I used XTree a bit back in the day, but never really got to grips with it. I mainly just use Windows Explorer for Windows file management now though. My favourite Linux text editor is VI, they got me using that when i worked for Sun for a year, and i love the fact that even on the most basic installations of Linux i can edit stuff intuitively - i wrote a very small part of Solaris 10 in VI ;).

CyberShadow
19 Aug 2006, 15:30
I'll end up keeping Photoshop and Painter, obviously, but switch back to Foobar2000 for music and something slick for video.
I tried Fb2k once but never got the hang of it - the interface is way too different from WinAMP, and also I don't see any immediate benefit. I use the latest version of WinAMP 5 to listen to music, but I only keep the necessary plugins loaded - I move the rest away out of the Plugins folder. That allows it to stay lean and not be a resource whore (like WinAMP 3 is). I also hate modern skins *g*
As for video, I'd recommend either Crystal Player (which is cute, slick although doesn't support all codecs) or Media Player Classic (not to be confused with the old Windows Media Player or its new Classic skin), which is an open-source application, and although not as lean as Crystal Player offers a lot more control over playback. Some people also praise BSPlayer, but I find its interface extremely non-intuitive.
Also, since you're so into anime, you should check out the CCCP project (http://www.cccp-project.net/) - a codec pack designed exclusively for playing anime.
My favourite Linux text editor is VI, they got me using that when i worked for Sun for a year, and i love the fact that even on the most basic installations of Linux i can edit stuff intuitively - i wrote a very small part of Solaris 10 in VI ;).
I only get to boot on Linux if I have to compile something there or if Windows breaks down. Or if I need to Nessus someone :D Either way, I can't use almost anything but MC, since it's the closest thing to FAR on Linux (I heard they were replacing MC's built in highlighter engine with FAR's colorer plugin) - and I don't have the time to settle for something overall better since I probably won't be spending a lot of time in Linux anyway.

SupSuper
19 Aug 2006, 17:23
There's no such thing as being too many features in the program, as long as the features you never use don't get in your way and don't take up too many resources. This is the case for FAR. :DWell even so, the whole plug-in concept that seems to be so popular these days doesn't really appeal to me, unless the plug-ins make sense, like, say, adding more formats to a media player.
I'd rather have different applications each specifically designed for their own specific purpose rather than having one designed to be pluginable so that everyone can bend and tweak the design at their own will for their own purposes so you end up not having any idea what to expect.
FAR does seem like a nice program, and the Norton Commander interface was always very popular for being so fast and simple for file operations (and I always used it in the DOS days), but bending it to do everything you want through plugins when there are probably much better interfaces and desgins suited for said tasks... just doesn't seem right to me.
Sorry if I don't make sense, seem obtuse or close-minded, I'm just giving my opinion.

M3ntal
19 Aug 2006, 17:48
CyberShadow, it'd be interesting to see a keylog of you using FAR. I know if i keylogged my VI usage, it'd be insane, like "[down]25[down][down]ddA[enter]iI like bananas.[esc]:wq!", and VI is just a text editor. I can only imagine how insane a keylog from a full file manager would be :D.

Xinos
19 Aug 2006, 19:22
Why would I want to use FAR prior to windows explorer? Have total access to every file on my PC withing 3-5 clicks, since I have my harddrives on my start menu.
Explorer ftw.

MadEwokHerd
19 Aug 2006, 23:37
The Linux player didn't work for me. It left some..let's say "artifacts" that I didn't get when using the windows player (with Wine of course).
And the video is just confusing. I'd much rather just use a unix-like shell and (yes) explorer on windows.

CyberShadow
20 Aug 2006, 02:07
Well even so, the whole plug-in concept that seems to be so popular these days doesn't really appeal to me, unless the plug-ins make sense, like, say, adding more formats to a media player.
I'd rather have different applications each specifically designed for their own specific purpose rather than having one designed to be pluginable so that everyone can bend and tweak the design at their own will for their own purposes so you end up not having any idea what to expect.
FAR does seem like a nice program, and the Norton Commander interface was always very popular for being so fast and simple for file operations (and I always used it in the DOS days), but bending it to do everything you want through plugins when there are probably much better interfaces and designs suited for said tasks... just doesn't seem right to me.
Well, you can't hammer a piece of jewelry with a sledgehammer, and you can't fix heavy armor with small precision instruments. I would never use FAR as a music player, but previewing a lot of WAVs (say, instrument samples) or MP3s by opening each one in your music player is a bit uncomfortable. I can't use FAR to convert images to other formats or do whatever today's popular image viewers do, but when I just want to view a picture it does an excellent task at displaying the picture immediately, allowing me to page through the current file list without having to send it to another application, and go back to my file list at the press of a button. I'll never use FAR for reading my day-to-day e-mail, however I'm not going to create a new e-mail account in my e-mail application when I just want to check the inbox on a POP3 account. I can't use FAR to debug programs or design GUI interfaces, but its syntax highlight, the language-independent word completion and the way I have configured it to integrate with compilers (compile current file/project at the press of a button) made bloated GUIs that take a minute to load and eat all your RAM and screen space with mostly useless clutter obsolete for most of my projects. E.g. WormKit and all of its modules (with the exception of WormNAT's configurator) were written only with FAR and Delphi's command-line compiler, and I never missed any advanced feature today's best IDEs could give me to help me write it.
The other programs are for the bigger tasks. FAR is a file manager; that's its original purpose. That's why I didn't demonstate FAR's file management functions?
CyberShadow, it'd be interesting to see a keylog of you using FAR. I know if i keylogged my VI usage, it'd be insane, like "[down]25[down][down]ddA[enter]iI like bananas.[esc]:wq!", and VI is just a text editor. I can only imagine how insane a keylog from a full file manager would be :D.
It would mostly comprise of tabs, strings typed with Alt depressed (quick find in panel), and function key shortcuts.
Why would I want to use FAR prior to windows explorer? Have total access to every file on my PC withing 3-5 clicks, since I have my harddrives on my start menu.
You are saying you have access to every file on your PC within 3-5 clicks. In my hard drive index snapshot of 16th August 2006, I have over 250,000 files in over 20,000 folders on my PC. With FAR, I can get to any of them via the following features:
1) By browsing normally, from the root of the drive. There's your quick find by typing up the start of the name, but you also have to hold Alt. When I'm looking for something, I usually switch the panel to "last modified" sort mode, so the stuff I recently worked with comes up first.
2) My most commonly used folders are set to folder hotkeys. This means, Ctrl+1 ... Ctrl+0 and I can get to any of the 10 preset folders. Currently these are set to my downloads folder, My Documents, my games folder, the W:A folder, my old Delphi 7 projects, my BDS 2006 projects, and a few less important ones.
3) More less important folders are in the FAR's menu (F2). These are also hotkeyed, so F2, B takes me to Borland Delphi's RTL source folder. (I don't look at the help files any more, I just look at the functions' source code.)
4) File and folder history. As you've seen in the demo, it allows full text filtering. This means that if I would like to go to a folder called "MyNewProject" which I have visited in the last few weeks, all I have to do is press Alt+F12, type "mynewproj" and press Enter.
Another of FAR's advantage over Explorer is its immediate speed. There is almost no slow code in FAR; it does most operations instantaneously (this doesn't affect OS calls of course). I can also queue up keystrokes without looking at the screen and know that FAR will do exactly what I want it to do. Example: F5, Enter, Enter, Tab, F4, Ctrl+End, Shift+Up, Ctrl+Del, F2, Esc will copy a file to the other panel, will respond to "Yes" on the overwrite prompt, will switch to the other panel, open the file in the built-in editor, delete the last line, save the file and exit the editor.
I almost never use the mouse in FAR. I can type in a bunch of keystrokes without looking at the screen and I know what FAR is going to do. This means I don't have to look at the screen and to think what do I have to press each time a new screen comes up.
...So... I can get to my favourite folders by pressing two keys, the less used favourite ones by pressing 3 keys (my main menu is mostly structured), and for most of the rest by pressing two keys, the file/folder name or an unique part of it, Enter.
The Linux player didn't work for me. It left some..let's say "artifacts" that I didn't get when using the windows player (with Wine of course).
You did set the console screen size to 80x25 like the readme says, didn't you?
Anyway, sorry. Linux is not my domain. If you can write a better player, I can send you the specs for the demo format.
And the video is just confusing. I'd much rather just use a unix-like shell and (yes) explorer on windows.
/me np: The Crystal Method - Born Too Slow
You can't beat hotkeys with console commands... especially since I have both. (I also use Cygwin.)
And see above for Explorer...

MtlAngelus
20 Aug 2006, 08:14
Wow. You're like, another K^2 :p.
I wholeheartedly agree that FAR seems much better than Windows Explorer, the thing is that getting used to it seems a bit hard once you're used to using Explorer.
Which really reminds me I need to excersize my mind more, I'm starting to get headaches by stuff that would seem a lot simpler years ago :o

Xinos
20 Aug 2006, 09:40
Okay, maybe if your a coder, but my computer work consists of opening images in photoshop and watching tv shows. I have a notepad icon on my windows task bar. I've got everything I need set up really efficiently, and most of it requiers graphics.
The only thing I could do in FAR would be browsing to folders, but I wouldn't have anything to do when I get there. =)
Granted FAR seems quicker than explorer if you browse through an open folder, say starting off from 'My Computer'. But when everything is available within just 3 seconds of hovering the mouse over the right folders, I can't see how FAR would make that ten times quicker.
http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload7/Untitled-1-oph.jpg

CyberShadow
20 Aug 2006, 13:24
Heh heh. You're right. I wouldn't make anyone switch to FAR, or anything for that matter, just because it's better, especially because they're used to something else. I'd really rather start out in Linux, but since I used Windows for so long before I got a glimpse of Linux (which I really love) it would be very hard to do something about it now.
Xinos, I used to do that by adding a "Desktop" toolbar to the taskbar. Now that I have bbLean though, it's one of its basic features. I know many designers who use bbLean. It's also quite stylish :P Did you check the screenshots (http://www.boxshots.org/)?
People make new styles for it every day :)

SupSuper
20 Aug 2006, 14:58
I suppose you have a point, but since you mostly showed the plugins, that's the impression I got. And I've grown used to Windows' quirks:
I can type the start of a filename in the Desktop/My Computer/Windows Explorer/Programs/etc. and it'll select what I want (although only the first letter works on the Programs list).
Or just use the auto-complete feature of the address bar/Run, which remembers the recently-used addresses so I don't have to type out the full path every time.

MadEwokHerd
20 Aug 2006, 15:43
I can also queue up keystrokes without looking at the screen and know that FAR will do exactly what I want it to do. Example: F5, Enter, Enter, Tab, F4, Ctrl+End, Shift+Up, Ctrl+Del, F2, Esc will copy a file to the other panel, will respond to "Yes" on the overwrite prompt, will switch to the other panel, open the file in the built-in editor, delete the last line, save the file and exit the editor.
You can really do this in any Windows app because of the way Windows processes keyboard events. If a program is lagging behind your keystrokes, you can be assured that in the end it will process them the same way it would if you had waited. Linux doesn't guarantee this (though it would in console apps); if I press ^o in gedit, I have to wait for the open dialog to appear before I can type in it. This and AutoHotkey are among the few things I actually prefer about Windows.
You did set the console screen size to 80x25 like the readme says, didn't you?
Anyway, sorry. Linux is not my domain. If you can write a better player, I can send you the specs for the demo format.
80x25 is the default. And console apps are not my domain.
Besides, why rewrite it if it works fine in Wine? :p
You can't beat hotkeys with console commands... especially since I have both. (I also use Cygwin.)
You can if the other guy can't remember what his hotkeys were.
Heh heh. You're right. I wouldn't make anyone switch to FAR, or anything for that matter, just because it's better, especially because they're used to something else. I'd really rather start out in Linux, but since I used Windows for so long before I got a glimpse of Linux (which I really love) it would be very hard to do something about it now.
You smart guy. You figure it out.

CyberShadow
20 Aug 2006, 15:53
You can really do this in any Windows app because of the way Windows processes keyboard events. If a program is lagging behind your keystrokes, you can be assured that in the end it will process them the same way it would if you had waited.
But not if the Windows app starts popping up dialogs and stealing focus and messing everything up. In Windows, messages go to the window that's active at the moment the message is queued; in FAR, messages go to the control that's active when the message is removed from the queue.
This and AutoHotkey are among the few things I actually prefer about Windows.
Long time ago, I wrote a program which is very similar to AutoHotkeys, and used it extensively. It was for managing global hotkeys, and it also had a scripting language. I don't use it any more, because I rarely need any of its features nowadays. Same goes with AutoHotkeys. The only global hotkeys I use now are for launching applications (FAR, Notepad, Calculator, Paint, BDS) and for controlling WinAMP - but these are built into bbLean and WinAMP.
You can if the other guy can't remember what his hotkeys were.
What's the point of boasting about all your powerful hotkeys if you can't even use them?
You smart guy. You figure it out.
Too late. I like it here.

MadEwokHerd
20 Aug 2006, 21:28
But not if the Windows app starts popping up dialogs and stealing focus and messing everything up. In Windows, messages go to the window that's active at the moment the message is queued; in FAR, messages go to the control that's active when the message is removed from the queue.
If the Windows app makes a dialog in response to one of your keystrokes, subsequent keystrokes go to that dialog, even if they were pressed before the dialog existed. This does not happen on Linux.
What's the point of boasting about all your powerful hotkeys if you can't even use them?
I generally don't use them much, except when doing certain repetitive tasks. Autohotkey is just a very useful tool in some situations.
Too late. I like it here.
Suit yourself.

bloopy
21 Aug 2006, 01:26
I think using text/console apps just appeals to some people and not others. It doesn't appeal to me. I don't really know why. Maybe it's because I'm more of a visual learner, and I find it a lot easier to remember where to look and what to click.
If the Windows app makes a dialog in response to one of your keystrokes, subsequent keystrokes go to that dialog, even if they were pressed before the dialog existed.
Chances are the dialog did exist, you just couldn't see it yet. If someone wanted to make the effort, the could probably program a Windows app that didn't behave like that.

MadEwokHerd
21 Aug 2006, 04:35
Sure, but it usually works if the dialog is created by the same app.

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