GP Software have released the latest edition of Directory Opus, aka DOpus. In skipping revision numbers from v6 to v8, DOpus has gained a vast amount of flexibility for viewing and managing different document types. Some of the highlights include:* Powerful File Manager & Explorer Replacement
* User-definable File Display Views
* User-definable Toolbars, Menus, File Types
* Advanced built-in Image and File Viewers
* Built-in ZIP and Advanced FTP
* Visually Synchronize Files & Find Duplicates
* Advanced Search and Rename Functions
* More Configurable than any other program
* Easy Slideshows…and much more..
It also has new image manipulation support for resizing and converting images, can send files via email, can automatically change the settings of the current window depending on the type of files contained including showing media meta data (think camera settings on images, etc), etc. Possibly the best thing about DOpus is that almost everything is configurable – all menus, toolbars, etc, etc. I suggest taking a look at the website (http://www.dopus.com/) to get an idea of what is possible, then download the 60-day evaluation copy for a trial-run.
I tried DOpus about a year ago when I was looking for an alternative to explorer for my studio box. I just couldn’t stand it. The UI is cluttered and inconsistant, there’s just too many features crammed into this one. And the price is a bit too much. I mean €50 for a filemanager?
What I’d like to see is a change in focus. They need to do something about the UI, not just add more and more features.
Make an elegant easy to use filemanager with “intelligent” features and I’m there. But €50 for this mess? No thanks.
When I used my Amiga I found that I prefered ClickDos over Directory Opus. I never enjoyed addon file managers that tried to do everything the OS did.
When I was still using my (alas dead) Amiga, I sticked to Directory Opus 4, because, it was flexible, quite easily customizable and simple to use.
This was not true anymore, IMHO, in the following revisions and I never used it on Windows.
There is a (working) project of Directory Opus 4 lookalike for X11: http://www.boomerangsworld.de/worker/
Otherwise, you may use Gentoo (not the distro), which is “inspired” by DirOpus 4 but not a clone (unlike Worker): http://www.obsession.se/gentoo/
(yes, the URL looks “suspiscious”)
Although no longer maintained, I have been using X WinCommander for a long time.
Simple, intuitive, tiny and very fast.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xwc
Call me cheap, but a file manager would have to be absolutely brilliant for me to buy it. Especially when there are comparable free solutions available.
If you think of DirectoryOpus as a file manager, you’re seriously mistaken, and *of course* you’re not impressed because you’re just looking at the tip of the iceberg.
Yes, the UI can be intimidating at first glance. Just as any OS UI today would be intimidating *if you aren’t used to it*. And it’s not by accident that the manual is as big as it is…
I’ve used DOpus Magellan II on the Amiga, as a Workbench replacement, and I seriously felt the pain when the reality of live forced me to cope with Windows Explorer. DOpus 6 came to the rescue.
As for the price tag: Register your copy of WinZip, ACDSee, and some file manager with fully integrated FTP client of your choice that comes with a fully scriptable and configurable interface, and still tell me it’s overpriced.
Of course there might be small tools better suited for your specialized needs. But in the “swiss army knife” department, I have yet to see anything even close to DOpus.
(Now where’s my credit card so I can order my update?)
One year ago I installed it.
Now I couldn’t live without it.
Leo.
It is and always has been a great program. I would be the last to say it isn’t worth the 60 buck price tag.
I would however suggest they have seriously restricted their target market with their price structure.
Great as it is, inexpensive is not one of the features.
Directory Opus is a great program on Amiga & Windows. It saved my bacon a few times over the years.
but it doesnt have much more features (and even some features less) than konqueror, which is free and even more configurable, still easier to use (although it doesnt work in windows – and I guess windows users are used to paying for software which is also freely available, so I dont think there’s problem – just buy the opus)
yeah, it looks nice, if I was still using windows I’d maybe buy it… although – it only handles zip??? not tar/gz/bz2/rar/etc?
Krusader is a very good DOpus clone for KDE.
http://krusader.sourceforge.net/
Krusader is a Norton Commander clone, not a DOpus clone.
@ superstoned:
Nomen est Omen, eh?
> it doesnt have much more features (and even some
> features less) than konqueror
From what I have seen of Konqueror so far, that is a *very* bold statement. I only wish it were so.
Yes, Konqueror has a web browser embedded. Nice touch. “Why does Konqueror crash on every site with Flash” even made it into the FAQ, but that’s not even Konqueror’s problem but a typical Linux thing. *chuckle*
Does Konqueror have a “find” and a “rename” feature even vaguely comparable to DOpus? (Like, can I batch-rename “PIC000001.JPG” through “PIC000099.JPG” to “picture_234.jpeg” through “picture_333.jpeg” retaining the numbering? Finding all files larger than 4 MByte containing a given string but not ending in .zip, all configurable in a GUI instead of tricky regexp business?)
Does Konqueror provide dockable / tearable listers, tree views, and toolbars?
From what I can see on the Konqueror homepage, it *doesn’t* have an address book for FTP sites with site-specific network settings. Does it support SSH/SCP? Does the file type system work in any way comparable to DOpus?
Does Konqueror support file synchronization? Can it find duplicate files for me? Does it do secure delete?
Can I configure the Konqueror view settings per directory?
And so it goes on. In the very least, Konqueror is not *remotely* as user-friendly IMHO.
> it only handles zip??? not tar/gz/bz2/rar/etc?
One of the features added in the new release is a plug-in architecture for additional archive formats.
> I guess windows users are used to paying for software
> which is also freely available…
I don’t like the deprecatory tone of that.
I am used to chose my tools based on price / performance. As opposed to many Linux geeks, who chose on “freedom” (as in, I get it for free…).
Right now my OS of choice is Windows, because it gives me DOpus and UltraEdit, whereas Linux has *nothing* comparable to offer. (And don’t give me Kate, XEmacs, SciTE et al. – been there, done that. jEdit is close, but not quite.)
Go over to the UltraEdit forum. The thread where people ask for a Linux version of that editor is the most-posted-to thread there.
And if you get that “but it’s not free” attitude out of your head for a second, you might start to understand why people buy Opera when there are web browsers to be had for free…
IMO the best file manager on Win platform is Servant Salamander. You can get trial version from here: http://www.altap.cz/download.html#sal25
I’ve used DOpus 5.x for Amiga for years and I can say with ease it’s hands down the best file manager ever. The Windows version is almost as great, but of course suffers from the architecture of Windows, though it does a very good job.
You need to get used to it, but then productivity will skyrocket and you’ll have more control with the contents of your harddrive than ever. It’s so damn configurable. I’ve saved many hours worth of file management with this thing.
It has a few hiccups, but the incredible flexibility makes up for that. It’s really fast too. Great to see more support for Meta data.
It should exist for any OS.
When I’m sticking on windows I enjoy ultra edit but saying there’s nothing closed on linux is just…. false
Nedit (http://www.nedit.org)
the only feature missing is remote opening…
I don’t like the way ultraedit handles ctags file, seriously it sucks…………
Go over to the UltraEdit forum. The thread where people ask for a Linux version of that editor is the most-posted-to thread there.
But the creator said that he wouldn’t make one because it works so well in wine right?
> When I’m sticking on windows I enjoy ultra edit but
> saying there’s nothing closed on linux is just….
> false
>
> Nedit (http://www.nedit.org)
* no project management;
* no search-in-project;
* no search-in-files, no double-click on the search result to jump into the file in question
* no remote-open (which I actually use every day).
Showstoppers, case closed.
@ Rick James:
Ah, now wait a second. Their product sucks because they don’t give it away for free? Because they don’t believe in the one true license like you do?
I don’t get anything for giving my opinion on a product. I don’t get anything from IDM for saying that I like UltraEdit, and I don’t get spanked by Stalman for saying that Emacs is a royal PITA.
You know, *I* am convinced that people are smart enough to check out the alternatives available, and make up their *own* mind about something and whether it’s worth paying for or not without getting religious about it. I was posting to this thread only because previous posters were mistaken regarding the *scope* of DOpus, or made false claims about the “superiority” of some “free” alternatives.
So call me a troll all day, fanboy.
@ solar
>> it doesnt have much more features (and even some
>> features less) than konqueror
> From what I have seen of Konqueror so far, that is a >*very* bold statement. I only wish it were so.
try KDE 3.3, and I mean a FULL kde 3.3 (mostly alot tools are not installed. check the toolsmenu, wheter there are refresh, crash, and speak webpage tools. if so, chances are most tools are installed). maybe the latest kanotix has them.
> Yes, Konqueror has a web browser embedded. Nice touch. >”Why does Konqueror crash on every site with Flash” even >made it into the FAQ, but that’s not even Konqueror’s >problem but a typical Linux thing. *chuckle*
Well, I never had this problem, and I suppose windows and its software never crashes??? (LOL)
> Does Konqueror have a “find” and a “rename” feature even >vaguely comparable to DOpus? (Like, can I batch-rename >”PIC000001.JPG” through “PIC000099.JPG” to >”picture_234.jpeg” through “picture_333.jpeg” retaining >the numbering? Finding all files larger than 4 MByte >containing a given string but not ending in .zip, all >configurable in a GUI instead of tricky regexp business?)
Well, I’ve been looking through Konqi, and I think Kfilereplace is both quite powerfull and easy to use. but indeed, this might not be there – if you dont want to work with regular expressions.
> Does Konqueror provide dockable / tearable listers, tree >views, and toolbars?
its a KDE app. (not being native enlish) I dont really understand it, but I guess so…
> From what I can see on the Konqueror homepage, it >*doesn’t* have an address book for FTP sites with >site-specific network settings. Does it support SSH/SCP? >Does the file type system work in any way comparable to >DOpus?
the filetype system is KDE’s so its quite powerfull. SSH? of course, ever heard about KIO slaves? I can go to my ftp site, doubleclick a kword file, edit it, click save, and I never notice its not local… this can be done over every protocol supported by KDE (quite a lot). THAT’s full network transparancy!
> Does Konqueror support file synchronization? Can it find > duplicate files for me? Does it do secure delete? Can I > configure the Konqueror view settings per directory?
dunno/there is an application for in KDE/depends on your filesystem/yes
>And so it goes on. In the very least, Konqueror is not >*remotely* as user-friendly IMHO.
I never tried opus (and it doesnt work under linux I guess) so I cant say much about that.
all in all, I guess opus has some features you cant find for free. a few. which, if you and a few others whould trow a bit money at it, can be fixed easilly. why not do that, instead of paying opus? they dont give you anyting except a stupid “right of use” – the next time a new version comes out you can pay again. do a donation to a developer, ask him/her for your desired features in Konqi – and you and the rest of the world will never have to pay for them again. thats value for money.
> > Go over to the UltraEdit forum. The thread where
> > people ask for a Linux version of that editor is
> > the most-posted-to thread there.
>
> But the creator said that he wouldn’t make one
> because it works so well in wine right?
In fact the creator hasn’t replied to that thread yet (as you could very easily have checked for yourself instead of arrogantly making assumptions). I haven’t asked him by e-mail yet as the need did not arise for me so far), but will do so tonight. Since he replied very positively to any previous bug reports / feature requests I mailed (which is more than I can say for numerous FLOSS fanboys, do you hear me, Rick?), I’m confident to have a reply within the day.
And even if all he mails me is a known-good Wine config, what would be bad about it?
second at solar, response to rick:
sorry about some ppl, rick is just trolling imho. I didnt mean my post to be a troll, its just quite serious actually. in windoze you aren’t used to good apps, cuz the standard apps suck so deeply (duh, if you’re used to notepad, ultraedit is quite cool. but there is not much difference between kate and ultraedit, so noone whould buy it…). I pitty you.
There is nice file manager clone for Windows named FilemMaster ( http://www.teammukippe.com ).
all in all, I guess opus has some features you cant find for free. a few. which, if you and a few others whould trow a bit money at it, can be fixed easilly.
Like, how so? Do you assume all of us are c++ programmers?
instead of paying opus? they dont give you anyting except a stupid “right of use”
What else do I want, the source code? I am not a programmer, so it would be like demanding the schematics for my new television .. even if I had it, I’d have no use for it.
the next time a new version comes out you can pay again. do a donation to a developer, ask him/her for your desired features in Konqi
First of all, Konq doesn’t run in Windows, second of all, I don’t like Konquerer at all. Third of all, considering it took 2 years for the Dopus people to make this version, I don’t think it would be a trivial task for someone to add all of the functionality into Konquerer.
> Yes, Konqueror has a web browser embedded. Nice touch.
> “Why does Konqueror crash on every site with Flash” even
> made it into the FAQ, but that’s not even Konqueror’s
> problem but a typical Linux thing. *chuckle*
I did not havy any flash related crash of Konq in at least six months. And very few other.
> Does Konqueror have a “find” and a “rename” feature even
> vaguely comparable to DOpus? (Like, can I batch-rename
> “PIC000001.JPG” through “PIC000099.JPG” to
> “picture_234.jpeg” through “picture_333.jpeg” retaining
> the numbering? Finding all files larger than 4 MByte
Krename plugin. Also for use as standalone app or as plugin in Krusader. Available on http://www.kde-apps.org
> containing a given string but not ending in .zip, all
> configurable in a GUI instead of tricky regexp
> business?)
Yes. Without ending in .zip, but how to do without regexp?
Hit Ctrl+F in file manager mode.
> Does Konqueror provide dockable / tearable listers, tree
> views, and toolbars?
Kind of. You can detach tabs, split views as you like.
> From what I can see on the Konqueror homepage, it
> *doesn’t* have an address book for FTP sites with
> site-specific network settings.
Everything is done with bookmarks. What do you mean ‘network settings’? Passwords? This is done with kwallet.
> Does it support SSH/SCP?
Yes. Fish.
> Does the file type system work in any way comparable to > DOpus?
And this works like … ?
> Does Konqueror support file synchronization? Can it find
> duplicate files for me?
Krusader does. And IMO Krusader is better suited for managing files. For casual browsing Konq is enough. But when I want to make clean-up of $HOME or uploading something bigger through ftp/ssh I am starting Krusader.
> Does it do secure delete?
I believe it was removed from core Konq because there was no guarantee this function will work across all systems where KDE is available. But it is available on kde-apps as service menu plugin.
> Can I configure the Konqueror view settings per
> directory?
Never tried it.
I am one of the many that used Dopus during my amiga years and yes it was the best,i have tried the new version on windows and even though i want to like it i can`t,it trys to do too much in my opinion.I allready have other apps for ftp/zip/image etc and i`m very comfortable with them,if they brought out a light version i`d go back,but not when they are trying to bolt on everything to it.
I`ll stick to xplorer2 as it`s very light and fast.
@ superstoned:
Nice to see there are people actually capable of discussion, still.
> try KDE 3.3, and I mean a FULL kde 3.3…
As the next “Linux trial” is coming ’round these days (I give Linux a try every 9 months or so to find out how much it caught up), I’ll do that. Get me right, there’s enough in Windows that makes me long for a good Linux installation instead, but so far Linux just didn’t stand up to my standards.
> …if you and a few others whould trow a bit money
> at it, can be fixed easilly. why not do that, instead
> of paying opus?
With DOpus, I installed a trial version, figured it would be worth the money, and bought what I already held in hands. It was a matter of typing in my credit card number, receiving the registration number by mail, and bingo.
What you suggest is giving money for something that *might* happen, *if* my ideas go along with those of the project maintainer. How to handle the whole thing (payment? contract?) is unclear. And for the price I payed for DOpus, I could pay for, how much, three man-hours? Five?
> they dont give you anyting except a stupid “right of
> use” – the next time a new version comes out you can
> pay again.
Erm… in how far is the “no warranty given” / “it’s free so don’t complain” I get from e.g. the KDE people better? Whether I get the source alongside with it or not only matters if I care to dig into tons of code from a tool I have to developer interest in.
I payed for Magellan, got a (substantial) discount on Magellan II and DOpus 6, and would again get a discount on the v8. When I bought DOpus 6, there was no German version – I got that for free, too, when it came out. Several dozen minor feature and bug-fix releases came for free. During that time, Dr. Perry replied very quickly and friendly to several mails with feature requests and bug reports I did send him. All feature requests of mine are implemented in v8, and I can now decide whether they are worth the upgrade fee or not.
> do a donation to a developer, ask him/her for your
> desired features in Konqi…
…and they might just as well decline, take ages, or disappear with my money for all that I know.
> …and you and the rest of the world will never
> have to pay for them again.
Software worth using is software worth buying. I have no problem paying a price if the software I get is more comfortable than any “free” alternative I know of.
And I thought the credo of the FLOSS community was “freedom as in choice, not freedom as in beer”?
> thats value for money.
I agree that, mathematically, price / performance can’t be beat if the price is zero. But awkwardness, lack of features etc. adds to the price, and if the best price / performance ratio comes from a Shareware title, I can’t see a problem with that. It’s not like *you* are forced to buy it. Live and let live. (The last again in Rick’s direction.)
> Without ending in .zip, but how to do without regexp?
By stating “Type” = “ZIP Archive”…
> What do you mean ‘network settings’? Passwords?
Not only. Transfer mode (ASCII / Binary), what file types qualify as ASCII, time zone settings, whether to use SSH / SSL, port numbers…
> > Does the file type system work in any way
> > comparable to DOpus?
>
> And this works like … ?
I can define new file types, configure the popup menu, tell the listers to show file-type-dependent data colums (like, height x width for images, sample rate for MP3)… see http://www.gpsoft.com.au/manual/WebHelp/File_Type_Editor.htm.
Oh, and one more for my special friend Rick:
> How much of a kickback do you get from the people
> selling the *SHAREWARE* you hype?
This thread is on DOpus, which *is* shareware. Cope, or complain to Eugenia.
> I never tried opus (and it doesnt work under linux I guess)
> so I cant say much about that.
If you’ve never even used it then why are you even commenting?
Damien
Ah, well, *I* was the one claiming that there is no Linux file manager being the equal of DOpus, so he stepped in and pushed Konqueror / Konq / Krusader / whatever (didn’t really get it what I would have to use to get which feature). Don’t blame him for trying.
http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml
The website supporting the book:
http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml
The rest of his site is just full of information:
http://www.softpanorama.org/index.shtml
joe
Completely off the mark. Since you obviously didn’t care to look at DOpus for longer than 5 seconds, take note that DOpus is *not* an OFM (Orthodox File Manager), and has not been since version 4 on the Amiga.
(OFM’s being those thingies where you have one fileview on the left and one on the right. DOpus *can* do this, but that doesn’t do it any justice.)
I’ve used DOpus on the Amiga. Did I like it? No. Did I use it often? Yes. Just because you don’t like something, or prefer something else doesn’t mean that is useless for yourself — never mind other people.
Is it worth the price? It depends upon what you need and what else is available. As several people pointed out, there are a lot of free (as in beer) options out there. If those suit your needs, all the more power to you.
If you cannot afford commercial/shareware software, and that is why you use open source, so be it. Some of the “I’ll buy a computer which is 20% faster because it is faster” crowd fail to realise that some of us are not made of money.
Better yet, a lot of the free stuff is open source so you do have more freedom. Even if free software doesn’t meet all of your needs, free software may have more value because it takes a more principled approach.
> Better yet, a lot of the free stuff is open source
> so you do have more freedom.
…
*bitingmytongue*
Better yet, a lot of the free stuff is open source so you do have more freedom. Even if free software doesn’t meet all of your needs, free software may have more value because it takes a more principled approach.
If a piece of software (free or not) doesn’t meet all my needs, then what good is it, especially when there is another piece of software that does meet all my needs? That’s like someone giving you a car and saying “Well, you can’t go more than 30mph with it, but hey .. it’s free!”
Some of you need to realize that a lot of us don’t see using non-free (as in speech) software to be immoral. I’m less concerned about the license than I am the functionality. If you’ve got a free (as in speech) piece of software that does everything I need, then I’ll use it. If not, I’ll use something else.
IMHO, saying a piecr of software is better because it is open source is a STUPID argument. If you like using inferior (as in functionality) software simply because you can modify it, more power to you. Personally, I’d rather pay for a non-free piece of software than to hack away at a free one. This goes along the same kind of logic as to why I don’t fix my own car when it breaks. If you think I can pay somebody to build an open source solution for something I need, then maybe somebody can tell me how much it would cost to have somebody build me a decent Reason clone.
While Directory Opus looks great, functionality wise it’s too much for me. The pricing of the product seems a bit too much for an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ file manager.
Personally, I’ve used 2xExplorer (discontinued classic version) as my file manager of choice. Functionality wise, it’s got everything I need and more. It’s extremely fast, totally customizable and it has some nifty Norton Commander-like hot keys. Should I decide that I need more features down the road, there’s also a newer maintained version called xplorer2, reasonably priced at 25 USD.
http://netez.com/2xExplorer/
http://netez.com/xplorer2
…….
Victor
Claiming that any piece of suits your needs is both ambiguous and arrogant, because no application can suit any given individuals’ needs perfectly. Nevermind talking about suiting everyones’ needs perfectly.
Flipping back to DOpus: sure sftp is great. Yet, if you do all of your file management from the command line, sftp or scp will work equally well. Sure PKZip support is great. Yet, if you do all of your file management from the command line, infozip will work equally well. Better yet, you don’t have to depend upon plugins for gzip, tar, or bzip2 files. Finding files based upon such-and-such criteria is great, but that is what the find command is for. All of these tools exist and integrate well into a command line environment. I’m sure you can find people who make equally valid claims for GUI based file managers, but that isn’t my thing so I won’t go there.
As for your 30 mph car, it may be a godsend if it was designed for a particular task. For example, my city has a number of small vehicles for little collection which could hardly break 30 mph (by the looks of it). I would hate to see them do residential garbage collection, but that is a different story.
One of the few programs I actually bought, can’t live without it anymore. Not only that Windows Explorer seemed to have refresh problems with deleted folders back then (dunno if that got fixed by now), I can make it act and look the way I want not.
“little collection” should read “litter collection”.
The point is, you can find lots of little utilities which will meet your needs, and a lot of them are cheaper/free. By free, I mean both cost and freedom. You may not care about signing your rights away to software vendors, but I do. I would hate to see license agreements with handtools saying that you cannot build handtool factories with them, even though I have seen such stipulations in commercial license agreements (Borland’s old “no nonsense” agreement had similar stipulations.) Similarly, I don’t like developers asking for money then disclaiming liability. I can understand that sort of philosophy in the free software community, but that is because they ask for nothing in return. Anyone who doesn’t see these things as problems either doesn’t read, or blatently ignores license agreements. Personally, I have more respect for the law than that.
I want IT, not “not”.
Looks like konqueror for windows. The GUI looks crowded. It seems to be suffering from featuritis.
I also use xplorer2. Its a very good program and is my main file manager. But it does have a few quirks. Every now and then it won’t let me open a file because it says the file is in use, but I think thats an issue with the preview option.
Their “unique FlatView(tm)” sound like a rip-off of the Mac OS list view. (NB: I’m not blaming them for copying it, just for calling it unique.)
There are too many icons. The really old version I have (for the Amiga) was more sensible in that it used text.
Two points…
————————-
First is that the free vs non-free vs open vs closed debate should be less about what program you use and more about who owns your data. If you can open your data in multiple programs then you have more control over it, especially if the source is available to the file format.
For example, I’ve been looking for a backup utility for simply ages that used an open file format and in the end gave up and (with DOpus8) wrote a few toolbar buttons that can do it for me using whatever archiving format I want, that way if software X suddenly disappears and doesn’t work on Windows 2008 I can use a different program to open the backups. Ditto for officey documents.
Unfortunately I consider myself stuck with Quicken but at least I’m able to export the main data into a file format other apps can read.
Regarding DOpus, it is a file manager, the only slightly “proprietary” aspect in terms of data creation are the file comments which can be set to store in the quite popular “descript.ion” format, thus negating any concepts of being locked into using it.
——————-
Second, regarding configuration, the thing to remember is that while DOpus has a vast array of features you can add/remove menus, toolbars, etc as needed. Personally on my systems I’ve reduced the toolbar to a single file list, removed many of the toolbars and kept it fairly bare-bones; this works well for me while others prefer to have more up front. DOpus gives you this flexibility while others don’t, that’s why I bought it.
Damien
>> Without ending in .zip, but how to do without regexp?
>
> By stating “Type” = “ZIP Archive”…
Hmm? Rather “NotType”?
Type you can of course specify in Konq, you cannot exclude types (or
more precisely – extensions) in GUI.
> > What do you mean ‘network settings’? Passwords?
>
> Not only. Transfer mode (ASCII / Binary), what file types qualify as ASCII,
>time zone settings, whether to use SSH / SSL, port numbers…
>
I didn’t have to take care about such boring details. KIO-slaves did all
work – and never have any problems with downloaded (or uploaded) files
like it happened few times with (then) Windows Commander.
> > > Does the file type system work in any way
> > > comparable to DOpus?
> >
> > And this works like … ?
>
> I can define new file types, configure the popup menu,
Done globally on KDE level.
> tell the listers to
>show file-type-dependent data colums (like, height x width for images, sample
>rate for MP3)… see
Of course. Just switch view types.
Claiming that any piece of suits your needs is both ambiguous and arrogant, because no application can suit any given individuals’ needs perfectly.
Maybe not, but one can certainly claim that one can come closer than all the others. Whether that particular program is free or not, I’ll use it every time, assuming the price is reasonable for the task at hand. I will sometimes choose a lesser app if the cost factor is an issue.
As for file management and the command-line, I’d rather not. Maybe it’s just a personal preference, but I like the visual aspect of being able to see two open diretories side-by-side, to be able to recognize a file type by its icon, and to easily be able to scroll through them if each directory has many files. I’m not saying that the command-line is ineffecient, it’s just not my personal preference.
As for your 30 mph car, it may be a godsend if it was designed for a particular task.
Right, but I think you’re being purposely argumentative here – you know what I meant.
The point is, you can find lots of little utilities which will meet your needs, and a lot of them are cheaper/free.
Right, I understand that. I’m not suggesting that you always pay for software if there’s a free/cheap alternative available. But sometimes, the free/cheap stuff is just more trouble than it’s worth. For example, I tried using Goldwave and Audacity for audio editing, but switched to CoolEdit (now Adobe Audition) in short order. The price of the lesser alternative was not worth the tradeoff in loss of functionality and loss of features.
mean both cost and freedom. You may not care about signing your rights away to software vendors, but I do.
As long as I have the right to use it and export data (when necessary), that’s all the rights I need.
> Can I configure the Konqueror view settings per
> directory?
Off course. With “/ wallpaper / looks / size of window /” of choice.
Konqueror can prob. not do all DOpus can but it really hard to find those features. Besides Konqueror is much more unclutterd than DOpus if you ask me. Konqueror does much better intergrate with the desktop too. That people can actually work with that kind of interface….tjeeezz
Didn’t see any mentioning of it so I thought I’d chime in.
TotalCommander is just as powerfull as DOpus but half the price (shareware if you don’t think it’s worth it).
I couldn’t live without it havent tried it in wine yet though… the gnu cli kind a make filemanagers redundant…
One of the nice features are filesystem plugins, reiserfs and ext2 from windows…
http://www.ghisler.com
Hum… Does Konqueror support Double-“listers” ?
Is it fully & easily customisable ? (can you add/remove toolbars, place these bars anywhere in a window ? configure double -left/right/middle- click for any filetype ? can you configure drop menu for any filetype as well ? shortcut for *any* function/button/menu ? does Konqueror provides internal commands to do what you want with it ?)
…I could go on and on…
Leo.
And what about the ability to customize the status bar ?
Maybe not, but one can certainly claim that one can come closer than all the others. Whether that particular program is free or not, I’ll use it every time, assuming the price is reasonable for the task at hand. I will sometimes choose a lesser app if the cost factor is an issue.
Perhaps we have different ways of defining a reasonable price. One of the factors I consider is the competition. If the competition offers a product which is nearly as good for a tiny fraction of the price, why not go for the competition. Of course the big problem with file managers is that most operating systems provide good file management facilities, so it is difficult to differentiate yourself.
As for the 30 mph car, I wasn’t trying to be argumentative — at least not out of context. If you’re idea of a text editor is something to write email in, something like pico may do the job. If you are only writing C programs you’ll want something more suitable. Similarly, if you are only commuting ten blocks, walking or cycling is more suitable than a car. If you live or work downtown, then public transit may be more suitable than a car. If you live in the suburbs and work in an industrial park, a car may be more suitable.
Perhaps I have a far kinder view of open source because I don’t need or desire multimedia applications like Audacity or CoolEdit. The things I tend to use are text editors and development tools and web browsers and such. Those are things which open source is good at.
As long as people claim that e.g. DOpus is bad because it has too many icons, this discussion is fruitless. You haven’t tried it to any extend, or you’d have found that you can toggle the icons on/off.
*Have* you tried both alternatives? I have used Konqueror *and* DOpus, and I prefer DOpus. As long as comments as the one above prove you haven’t tried DOpus, don’t argue.
about customizabillity, nothing ever beats konqueror. why? its open source-d stupid! if you want to change anything, do it yourself (open the code and hack away) or ask someone you know for it. or say “I give E30 to anyone who hacks this and that together”. that way you can have the app any way you want it…
right, with a file-manager you wont have to worry about proprietary file-formats, thats a good thing. but still you pay for software you don’t get (after paying, you don’t anything, do you? yep, ‘user rights’, thin air, if you ask me… I’d say, only pay if you get the product.
and still, most features I heard of now are in Konqueror, or in every app in KDE (kioslaves).
and I still think if you guys would have used all the money for this and other apps for OSS development (eg put bounty’s on certain features, together) you’d have more.
It would take 2 years to code opus. but it whouldn’t take long or much money to adapt konqi to your features, I am sure… KDE is a very efficient programming environment, and konqi is extremely flexible (I think only a few plug-ins would already fix it – konqi is the most plugable prog you’ve ever seen – konqi itself is just a mere window or container, nothing more…)
nice example: I have spell-check now I’m typing this 😉 actually this text input field isnt konqi, its from kate, KDE Advanced Text Editor…
really, you should have a look at KDE now. and dont give up too soon – the windows way is more often than not maybe familiar, but not better. so try to get used to another way of doing things (or adjust it to your liking). remember: every toolbar can be customized, menu’s dont have to be shown, etc etc. and you can ask ppl to fix things (dont try that with windows, M$ won’t listen, I tried – and if they did, a new version takes months or years, and in linux you can download and compile the source yourself, or wait for a few weeks and the next level is there!)
You’re still seriously off-track.
> about customizabillity, nothing ever beats konqueror.
> why? its open source-d stupid!
Did it *ever* occur to you that poking around in source code is not a user’s idea of “customizability”? Customizing is done by ticking off options in a dialog, *perhaps* editing settings in a text file, but everything beyond is… well, beyond Joe Average.
> most features I heard of now are in Konqueror, or
> in every app in KDE (kioslaves).
Unfortunately that’s an argument we could only resolve if we would sit side-by-side, me showing you what I like in DOpus and you showing me how easy that is copied in Konqueror. I am still firmly believing you’d lose such a shootout, in the very least in the useability / documentation department, since – as I said – I *did* try Konqueror, and I was not impressed.
> and I still think if you guys would have used all
> the money for this and other apps for OSS development
> (eg put bounty’s on certain features, together) you’d
> have more.
Blah, blah, blah. There’s a definite difference between paying for a feature you tried, liked, and know it’s there, and paying for a feature that *might* happen in a year or so if you’re lucky.
Go out to the real world and try. You will realize that many OSS developers – at least all *I* approached – are remarkably resistant against feature requests from the outside.
> It would take 2 years to code opus.
Bullshit.
2 years is about how long DOpus 6 has been *released*. Not counting the previous experience on the Amiga. And that’s more than one person working on DOpus.
> but it whouldn’t take long or much money to adapt
> konqi to your features, I am sure…
Do you *really* believe when I walk up to the Konqi team and say, “make your baby into a DOpus clone, I’ll pay you 50 USD”, they’d do anything but laugh at me?
> really, you should have a look at KDE now. and dont
> give up too soon – the windows way is more often than
> not maybe familiar, but not better.
One, I’m not talking about the Windows way, but the DOpus way, which is significantly different. And one of the really distinguishing features of DOpus is the documentation.
I challenge you: Go to http://docs.kde.org/en/3.3/kdebase/konqueror/, then go to http://www.gpsoft.com.au/manual/opus_documents.html, and still tell me the two are even *remotely* comparable in features. (Make sure to check the chapter “Customize” and Appendix C of the DOpus docs. Oh, and try to download KDE docs for offline reading / printout…)
> you can ask ppl to fix things (dont try that with
> windows, M$ won’t listen, I tried…
I never waited for more than 24 hours for a reply from GPSoft.
2 years is about how long DOpus 6 has been *released*. Not counting the previous experience on the Amiga. And that’s more than one person working on DOpus.
I think he got the ‘2 years’ comment from me, when I said it took 2 years to get from DOpus 6 -> DOpus 8
> but it whouldn’t take long or much money to adapt
> konqi to your features, I am sure…
Do you *really* believe when I walk up to the Konqi team and say, “make your baby into a DOpus clone, I’ll pay you 50 USD”, they’d do anything but laugh at me?
If you got 1,000 of your friends to chip in the same amount, perhaps they’d do it
Of course, you could either have the Konquerer developers build in the functionality you want (of course they’d have to port it to Windows in the process), or you could simply pay for the functionality that is already in DOpus.
I’ve never been a big fan of this kind of file manager and I don’t find most of the advanced features that useful. But I’d really love to have a column based file manager for Windows, like in NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X. It’s a very efficient and intuitive way of dealing with a folder heirarchy IMO.
Does anyone know if DOpus has a modifyable copy/move queue? Every now and then when transferring files I’d like to modify the order in which the files are copied/moved and/or remove items from or add items to the copy/move queue. Sometimes I also want to pause the transfer for a while (e.g. because I have to free some space for the new files). These features are very common in ftp clients so I wonder why people do file managers without them. Does DOpus support these features? Does anyone know of any other file manager that supports them?
> Sometimes I also want to pause the transfer for a
> while (e.g. because I have to free some space for
> the new files).
When space runs out (or any other error occurs), DOpus pauses copy / move operations with an error dialog. That dialog offers “Skip File” / “Retry” / “Cancel”. Since listers are non-blocking, you are free to handle whatever generated that error.
As for copy/move queue… I haven’t come across one. When you initiate a second transfer while the first one is still running, DOpus initiates the second transfer in parallel.
Solar wrote:
> > Sometimes I also want to pause the transfer for a
> > while (e.g. because I have to free some space for
> > the new files).
>
> When space runs out (or any other error occurs), DOpus
> pauses copy / move operations with an error dialog. That
> dialog offers “Skip File” / “Retry” / “Cancel”.
I assumed it would do that, because doing the alternative (i.e. just failing like Windows Explorer) would be very stupid. However, often you don’t want to fill the partition up to the last few bytes before pausing.
I also hope DOpus supports resuming failed/cancelled transfers, and that it won’t delete a partially downloaded file when cancelling the transfer. If I spend 8 hours downloading a large file and there is an error (or I have to pause it) when it’s 95% done, then the program should NOT delete the 95% that was already downloaded! (If Mr.Gates and Mr.Ballmer would have been nearby the first time Windows Explorer did that to me they wouldn’t have survived.)
> When you initiate a second transfer while the first one is
> still running, DOpus initiates the second transfer in parallel.
That’s nice sometimes, but often it’s quite stupid. E.g. if both transfers involve the same drive(s) then it could become a lot slower and/or the resulting files extremely fragmented.
> I also hope DOpus supports resuming failed/cancelled
> transfers…
It most certainly does.
As for the pausing of operations and the transfer queue, those aren’t bad ideas. Why not write a mail to [email protected] and suggest those two features? Greg Perry is always welcoming good ideas for improvement. (And you don’t even have to pay for new features up front.
)
> As for the pausing of operations and the transfer queue,
> those aren’t bad ideas. Why not write a mail to
> [email protected] and suggest those two features?
Well, the ideas aren’t exactly new. They’ve been implemented in most ftp clients for ages. Since DOpus apparently has a built-in ftp client one would think the authors have used other ftp clients.
But sure, I’ll file such a feature request after trying out dopus 8 for a while.
I know no-one is still watching this thread, but just for the archives:
In the last three days I tried KDE 3.3. As for Konqueror vs. DOpus… you *GOT* to be kidding. Konqueror doesn’t hold a f***ing *candle* to DOpus. Konqueror might measue up to Windows Explorer, but it sure as *hell* doesn’t play the same league as DOpus.
Sheesh.