Submitted by “Krusader is a massively powerful and feature-packed twin panel file manager. If you dislike bloat and prefer minimalist windows managers like XFCE or Fluxbox, the good news is that Krusader will run without KDE, provided you have the necessary libraries installed. If Dolphin isn’t cutting the mustard Krusader might just be what you’ve been looking for.” Here is the download page for Krusader, give it a spin and share your comments.
I have my Krusader application open since my system starts up, it is a nice and very complete tool to manage files, view, edit, copy them from/to ftp, sftp, archive, unarchive, them, etc.
KKK: Kudos Krusader Krew!!!
Um… You didn’t think that through, did you?
I would not actually say it was my “most deep thought”!!!
I figured he wasn’t from the USA, and a check of his profile shows that he isn’t. I suppose I’m glad not everyone from outside the US has the KKK on their mind – we’re not too proud of them
Anyway, the dual pane file manager thing seems to have some staying power. Nice there’s one for KDE. I’ve been stuck in my habits of using a dirtree enabled file manager forever, might be time to give Krusader a shot.
Edited 2008-10-19 07:40 UTC
There are other meanings for KKK than the klan, you know.
finally a twin panel file manager. both explorer and finder (yes, i’m criticizing the apple interface) suck big time. i need to see my source and destination, this way i see what i’m doing. without total/midnight commander i’m totally lost.
thank you developers for making a sane interface. can anybody tell me it has a usage map like kdirstat? if it has i install install kde on my freebsd server. the disk usage bar seems not unable for really large collections.
Nice introduction. I’ve always been a big fan of GNU Midnight Commander, and Krusader feels like a natural GUI replacement of mc.
Krusader is the best tool I’ve found for synchronizing directories when I move my backups between computers. Kdiff3 integration for comparing and merging plain text files and Filelight integration for showing graphical presentations of disk usage are great extensions to Krusader’s powerful file management features.
I’m eagerly waiting for the Qt4 version of Krusader. Too bad there hasn’t yet been any news about Qt4 ports of Kdiff3 or Filelight, AFAIK.
Edited 2008-10-17 21:01 UTC
I liked the article very much except the conclusion.
The reviewer wants to add http support to it and make it like Konqueror. This is a big NO NO from me. I don’t want my file manager to do everything in the world.
His other request was universal document viewer which is fine with me. But, make it a fast, bare minimum one (like QuickLook in Mac OSX).
the funny thing is that one can set up konqueror to do just the same, it may even come with a commander profile ready to use. you know, two window areas, in details mode, and a cli under it.
Actually, even Dolphin can be set up this way with two panes and a cli at the bottom. It can also browse archives, it handles ftp/sftp/fish/what have you using kio, it can be extended with service menus (useractions in krusader), it has breadcrumbs (optional) and an intuitive interface, and best of all, it doesn’t have pages of configuration to wade through before you can actually use it.
I used to use Konqueror a lot, but Dolphin was a breath of fresh air for me. You can have a powerful file manager without a godawful interface and a million options. Good riddance to that.
For example the mountman tool they talk about. If you need a dedicated tool to manage drives your system is broken. The file manager should intelligently handle devices as they are plugged in.
Filelight is cool, but it’s a rarely used tool and can be used standalone when you want to use it every 6 months or so. Really not worth the extra ui complexity to integrate it. I would much rather have simple, dedicated tools to do one job well than all jobs in one giant blob.
heh, funny enough i sometimes find myself wondering why konqueror do not have a option for something im trying to do, when it seems to have a option for just about anything else…
and i have come to like the konqueror interface, i just wish that someone would backport a breadcrumbs bar to 3.5, as i have yet to go 4.x…
i have been using this for almost 6 years now, it is awsome. I am really enjoying the 2.0 beta. keep up the great work guys, its well apreciated.
That application looks very good
“Krusader will run without KDE”
if by “KDE” the author means “the KDE desktop workspace”, then yes .. and that’s true of all KDE applications.
KDE is not a desktop environment. the KDE workspace is one application suite the KDE community produces; all KDE applications (as defined by “they use the KDE development platform”) run just fine without the KDE workspace.
well .. except for the applications that *are* the KDE workspace
that would be an interesting trick, otherwise… =P
there is something about the dual panel (+ CLI at bottom) file manager concept that is so very bloody powerful and useful.
i was using norton commander back when msdos was 3.30, had never been without a dual panel file manager on all the operating systems i have used. even now, i am using total commander on my vista laptop.
</rant>
Edited 2008-10-18 08:13 UTC
It’s the fact it’s honoring a simple concept: Many things of your daily file administration work are “source and target operations”, such as copying, moving, symlinking; even creating archives or FTP operations (get / put) can be seen that way.
I never understood why one would use the edit buffer (!) to copy or move files…
The famous Midnight Commander follows this concept. You don’t even need to “switch modes” (e. g. from panel mode into CLI mode), no, you just can type in a command and complete it with file or directory names from one or both panels.
Allthough the Midnight Commander is able to be operated by the mouse, I don’t know of one person doing it. The most powerful input device for this kind of file manager still seems to be the keyboard, especially the programmable function keys, following a long tradition, make it easy to access the functions of the file manager – you don’t need to travel nested menues.
There have been many clones of the famous Norton Commander you mentioned, some better, some worse. I think Krusader belongs to the first category. It’s a nice tool when you’re using KDE anyway, it integrates well with the look of the rest of the desktop (only matters when you’re a “consistency guy”). Its functionalities seem to cover all the things you need in daily operations. I’ll give it a honest try on the longer run, allthough it could never be a replacement for the Midnight Commander to me (MC can be used via text mode connection, even serial one).
I have used dual panel on all OS:es ive used so far for day to day work with the exception of BeOS. I just find the Tracker so much simpler the right click navigation of the filesystem is just awsome. Wonder why no desktop system i know of has tried the same aproach?
Why did those bonehead Microsoft developers ever get rid of the file manager from Windows 3.1? That was a complete step backwards in my estimation.
I have been using Krusader for over 4 years and it is the only app I can use to manage my files. That being said, I do have some gripes with the application, I hope this can be taken as some constructive criticism.
When I copy move files around, the copy dialog sometimes steals focus away from krusader. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it does get annoying sometimes.
It would also be nice if we could see those files that are no longer going to be there (being moved or deleted) in a certain highlight until the operation completes, like faded text for example. Makes keeping track of files easier.
Still, this is my favorite file manager and I am glad its getting some recognition. Great job done by the Krusader team.