
Show HN: Cloud Commander orthodox web file manager with console and editor - coderaiser
https://cloudcmd.io
======
60654
Hey, that looks like Norton Commander in the browser! Even the icon is an
homage to the original. Neat.

Also TIL that "orthodox" file manager is an actual term, and there's even a
huge online book about them [1]. That's funny, we used to call then just "file
managers"... ;)

1\.
[http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml](http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/index.shtml)

~~~
8ig8
Wikipedia has an overview:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_m...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_managers)

------
ygra
A few things I noticed in the live demo:

\- The console isn't there unless you open it manually, at which point it
overlays the panels. To me one of the main benefits of an OFM is that you have
a console _always_ available _as well_ as the panels (from which you can pick
file names or paths (Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]). If I want only one or the
other I'd use Explorer and cmd instead of Far.

\- The context menu (curiously opened with F9, which normally triggers the
application menu of the OFM, from which you can access settings, view options,
etc.) is not usable with the keyboard, which kinda defeats its purpose in such
a tool.

\- Bulk selection keys Num+ and Num- don't work, although they are documented.

\- Alt+Left/Right is perhaps not the best idea for a hotkey in a browser.
Sometimes it performs its intended function, when pressed in the wrong panel
it instead performs the browser's function for going around the history. I'd
say either find better hotkeys or always disable the browser's function,
instead of contextual.

\- Page↑/Page↓ curiously move less than a page, which means when pressing
Page↓ with the cursor at the top, the list doesn't scroll.

\- When using a keyboard layout where `/~ is a dead key (e.g. US
International), the dead key will remain active for the first key pressed in
the console, leading to things like à instead of a. This may not be
circumventable from within a web application, but perhaps a better hotkey can
be chosen instead to make up for the deficiencies of handling input in web
applications. This issue also would go away once the console is always there
instead of having to be toggled.

\- The feedback button in the live demo doesn't work.

~~~
coderaiser
Thank you for such a detailed commentary.

\- Yes, there is such thing: console opens on a modal, but it would not be
changed in the nearest future in Cloud Commander, anyways
console([https://github.com/cloudcmd/console](https://github.com/cloudcmd/console))
could be used independently to build a fork from cloudcmd dependencies which
are mostly located on npm. I can help with it but I have no time to do it
myself. It is a good idea about picking file names or paths (Ctrl+Enter,
Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]). Actually you already can paste path to current directory with
Ctrl + P, but using this hotkeys would be more convenient.

\- You right about menu. It is a simplest possible component
[https://github.com/coderaiser/menu-io](https://github.com/coderaiser/menu-
io), anyways it could be improved, pull requests are welcome.

\- Num+ and Num- and Alt+Left/Right fixed in v5.7.6
([https://github.com/coderaiser/cloudcmd/releases/tag/v5.7.6](https://github.com/coderaiser/cloudcmd/releases/tag/v5.7.6))

\- I can not reproduce Page↑/Page↓ bug, maybe it is related to screen size?
What screen resolution do you have?

\- I'll think about dead key, looks like it should be handled separately.

\- It is strange, I can't reproduce feedback button bug either. What browser
and OS do you have? Could you look at Network Panel and Console of Developer
Tools of your browser? Is there something red?

~~~
ygra
I'm sorry to not being able to help out with pull requests. My grasp of
JavaScript isn't good enough and work leaves me with little time to devote to
other projects, sadly. I hope a bit of input from a bit of a usability
perspective is still welcome, though :-)

As for Page↑/Page↓: 1680×1050 here. Could reproduce it in both Firefox and
Chrome.

As for dead keys: It may require rethinking input handling, depending on how
you're doing it currently. Input is usually on two different levels: Key
presses and text input. While you usually cannot reliably turn the former into
text and cannot get a pressed key from the latter (could also have been an IME
or multiple keypresses), you usually should be able to handle a key press (for
opening the console) and not have it result in state changes for text input
handling (which would be required for input on the console).

Feedback button now works, but didn't for me when I wrote that comment either
on Firefox or Chrome on Windows 10. I didn't consider checking the dev tools,
though, sorry. But seems to be resolved now.

------
iflowfor8hours
I have been trying to break a FAR manager addiction for many many years,
despite being a linux user exclusively for the last 10, FAR is the most useful
shell I have ever used. mc doesn't cut it.

~~~
digi_owl
I guess my may have seen it, but there appears to a project ongoing to try to
port FAR to Linux.

[https://github.com/elfmz/far2l](https://github.com/elfmz/far2l)

------
digi_owl
Makes me wish this was what Firefox would present me with if i entered a ftp
url...

------
hiou
This has to be the greatest logo I've seen in a while. Did you create it
yourself and if so what did you use?

~~~
coderaiser
This logo is a work of a great designer
[http://zalitok.github.io](http://zalitok.github.io) She use CorelDRAW and
Adobe Ilustrator for this purpose.

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PuffinBlue
Anyone want to give a run down of what this is/does?

The live example isn't working either.

~~~
Gruselbauer
From the site, it seems to be a Web version of mc on JS base, making file
management outside of trusted ssh devices less of a nuisance. Fairly
straightforward imho.

~~~
PuffinBlue
> Web version of mc on JS base

What is mc?

~~~
kroo
"mc" stands for midnight commander, which is itself a clone of Norton
commander, which was sold by Symantec in the 80s and 90s. Norton commander was
popular enough that by the time it was discontinued it had been ported to many
other platforms (midnight commander being one of the ports for unix systems).
Over time, Norton commander became the prototype for the "orthodox file
manager", the category of file managers with two side-by-side file browser
windows: many of the same key bindings for this category of file manager are
the same as the original norton commander keybindings.

Midnight commander (and more generally an orthodox file manager) is especially
useful for moving files from one system to another, as it usually supports
browsing to remote file systems over ssh or ftp, and gives you a simultaneous
view of where you're moving files from and to on the same screen.

The Wikipedia page is a pretty interesting read, actually:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander)

~~~
digi_owl
Actually it started as a independent company that Symantec bought in the 90s.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton_Computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton_Computing)

~~~
kroo
Fascinating, TIL–thanks!

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nthcolumn
Excellent! Great doco too.

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Gruselbauer
This looks hella useful. Checking it out today. Thanks!

