A Great and Lacking Java-based File Manager

For a long time my go-to file manager has been Double Commander. It is quick and powerful and I can configure it super minimal - even hiding the tabs. The search feature works so much better than the native Windows search tool, so when I'm on a 'dohs' box it is especially handy (Although lately I've been using grep within the GIT bash).

Every now and then I get bored and change it up. I've explored VIFM and other console-based file managers. They are cool and a lot of fun but I usually end up missing Double Commander's features.

I have recently returned to muCommander. Now that I've spent a lot of time working in Java it's cool to use a Java-based file manager. And I've grabbed the source code. I may see if I can get it to always hide the tab bar. I've returned to it purely for fun. Sadly it is lacking one major feature... searching. Yes the latest version has a file search dialog you can pull up, but it's more of a placeholder than an actual tool. I navigated to a temp directory and searched for 'category' which I knew was in an XML file in that directory. 0 results. Even the Windows search tool would have found that. I tried case insensitive (Even though the case was the same) and I tried the Regex option. Nothing - in fact it wouldn't even search with the Regex set. And when you launch the dialog the options are always set to their defaults, not what you set them to last - huuge headache. And shouldn't the search results show in a new tab versus commandeering your current tab? It is just unusable. I feel like searching should have been a goal early on in the project. How useful is a file manager if you can't search your files?

Also lacking... you can't create a new file (I couldn't figure out how at least). So to do so you have to pull up a different file manager - or text editor. If you have to leave a file manager to create... a file, you've failed.

If I have to rely on other file managers to do basic things then the file manager in question isn't a viable option.

I do like muCommander and would love to use it as my primary tool for dealing with files, but sadly after all these years it is still not ready to do basic file-related tasks. I'm going to poke around in the code and see if I can somehow make it usable enough for me.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about muCommander in the near future. Maybe I'll do like I did with Jreepad and create a 'murdered out' version.

Enlightened

I've tried yet another window manager, Enlightenment. I'm really not sure why I keep doing this to myself, I keep my desktop so minimal there really isn't much noticeable difference. I don't use taskbars or 'shelves' or widgets. I launch everything from the launcher and I keep my window decorations as minimal-themed as possible. I like the idea of tiled WMs, but they do really funky things when I'm working in Reaper or other GUI intense apps. I don't do everything in the console. And Plasma just works better. I've tried using the fstab to automount my USBs, so far to no avail. So that is a pain in non-plasma WMs. I use CopyQ for my clipboard manager and that never works quite right in other WMs either. It would be great if Plasma had a tiled mode. I actually haven't looked into that so I may be missing something.

The Bad

So far the pain points I have with Enlightenment are:

- Touchpad disabling when a mouse is plugged in.

This one is actually kind of a big deal. It is a huge pain, having the cursor moving around as I'm trying to type. And it inadvertently clicks on whatever it is above. I have a script I can run to disable it but that is kind of a pain. In Plasma, I can just set the option to disable it when a mouse is plugged in.

- Automounting USBs doesn't seem to work. This is another task I can simply set in an option in Plasma.

- CopyQ behaves... weirdly. In Plasma it launches on startup and behaves as it should.

Honestly these are the exact issues I've had with all the tiled WMs and lightweight WMs, and Fluxbox etc. Sadly so far it is just the big fellas - Gnome, KDE - that do everything I need as a terminal AND GUI user. As I've already stated I need to be able to work in Blender, Reaper, Inkscape, Gimp, and other GUIs. Unfortunately I can't do everything in VIM.

The Good

- It looks great.

I do like the look of Enlightenment. It feels like my whole computer is an audio app or virtual synth. I may need to tweak my Plasma config to look kinda like this.

- Speed.

The experience is really snappy. It just feels lightweight and not bloated. It's nice.

Even though I'm going back to Plasma, I feel like Enlightenment is worth a try, you might love it. Same with Fluxbox. Give that a try as well.