Far Manager

Last updated

Far Manager
Developer(s) Eugene Roshal (1996–2000)
Far Group (2000–present)
Initial release10 September 1996;28 years ago (1996-09-10) [1]
Stable release
3.0.6364  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 24 August 2024
Repository
Written in C++
Operating system Microsoft Windows, BSD Unix, OSX, Linux port [2]
Available inEnglish, Russian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish, Spanish, Slovak, Italian, Ukrainian, Belarusian
Type File manager
License BSD-3-Clause
Website farmanager.com

Far Manager (short for File and ARchive Manager) is an orthodox file manager for Microsoft Windows and is a clone of Norton Commander. Far Manager uses the Win32 console and has a keyboard-oriented user interface (although limited mouse operation, including drag-and-drop, is possible).

Contents

Far Manager was created by Eugene Roshal, and has been under development by the Far Group since 2000. The project's Unicode branches (2.0 and 3.0) are open-source (under the BSD-3-Clause license). All branches are available as 32- and 64-bit builds. Far Manager is often viewed as a very customizable file manager and text editor, and a free alternative to Total Commander. [3] [4] [5]

Features

Far Manager features an internal viewer and editor, customizable user menus, tree views, file search, compare, integrated help, and a task switcher for its tools. Its standard functionality can be expanded with macros (which allow scripting) and plugins.

Far Manager's default interface combines two file panels with a command prompt. Panels may be fully customized as to which columns are shown and in which order, and operations may be done to and from either panel. The file panels support wildcard selection, advanced filtering, sorting and highlighting. The file panels and the command prompt are both active at the same time (they are interacted with using different keys), and most features can be accessed using keyboard shortcuts (the key bar at the bottom displays the function key actions for the currently held down modifier keys).

Extensibility

Far's standard functionality can be greatly extended with macros (written in Lua scripting language, primarily used to record keypress sequences) and plugins. Standard plugins installed by default include FTP, Windows network, extensible archive file support and temporary panel (sandbox) virtual file systems, a process list, print manager, filename case converter, and several editor plugins to format, wrap, and otherwise alter text.

Third-party plugins are available from the PlugRing [6] repository and plugin announcement forum. [7] [8] Some popular plugins include regular expression search and replace (both in the text editor and across multiple files), syntax highlighting and auto-completion for the text editor, SFTP/SCP and Windows Registry virtual file systems, 7-zip integration, a hex editor and a picture viewer (which overlays a DirectX surface over Far's console window). [9] [10] Wrappers are available which allow using some Total Commander plugins with Far Manager, and vice versa. Plugins can be developed using the native C/Pascal API, [11] or using wrappers which permit plugin development in other platforms and languages, such as .NET (including PowerShell), [12] and Lua. [13]

Linux, MacOS and BSD version

far2l [14] project develops port of Far Manager v2 working on Linux, MacOS and BSD systems. As of February 2021, the port successfully builds and the most common functions work. Among ported and working plugins are Colorer, MultiArc and TmpPanel. There is also the new NetRocks plugin implementing network connections via FTP, FISH, SCP, SFTP, SMB, NFS and WebDAV. As of January 2022, the project has moved to the beta stage, support for python and lua scripts has been added.

far2l also supports "terminal extensions". Although FAR2L itself is a TUI application, it can run in GUI or TTY backends modes. While TTY backend can run in any terminal (like, for example, xterm), it can also run inside a built-in terminal of GUI mode far2l, gaining capabilities not available on "regular" terminals (such as recognizing all possible keyboard key combinations, even with keyup events). Also, the "host" far2l can provide shared clipboard access and desktop notifications. Those extensions can be used by running TTY far2l inside an SSH client session opened in "host" GUI far2l (or by using SFTP/SCP protocols in NetRocks to run remote far2l via "execute remote command" feature). [15]

far2l is available in Ubuntu Linux starting from version 24.04, and can be installed using sudo apt install far2l command. [16]

Licensing

Far Manager is available under the BSD-3-Clause license.

Originally, Far Manager was available as 40 days shareware for everyone except for citizens of the former USSR countries, who could use it as freeware for non-commercial use only. [17] On 26 October 2007, the source code for the Unicode development version (1.80, later renamed to 2.0) was released under the BSD-3-Clause license. [18] [19] [20] On 17 May 2010 the 1.x branch has also been released under the BSD-3-Clause license, though without source code. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vim (text editor)</span> Improved version of the Vi keyboard-oriented text editor

Vim is a free and open-source, screen-based text editor program. It is an improved clone of Bill Joy's vi. Vim's author, Bram Moolenaar, derived Vim from a port of the Stevie editor for Amiga and released a version to the public in 1991. Vim is designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Since its release for the Amiga, cross-platform development has made it available on many other systems. In 2018, it was voted the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers; in 2015 the Stack Overflow developer survey found it to be the third most popular text editor, and in 2019 the fifth most popular development environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xfce</span> Desktop environment

Xfce or XFCE is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ardour (software)</span> Open-source digital audio workstation

Ardour is a hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation application that runs on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Microsoft Windows. Its primary author is Paul Davis, who was also responsible for the JACK Audio Connection Kit. It is intended as a digital audio workstation suitable for professional use.

Irrlicht is an open-source game engine written in C++. It is cross-platform, officially running on Windows, macOS, Linux and Windows CE and due to its open nature ports to other systems are available, including FreeBSD, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, Symbian, iPhone, AmigaOS 4, Sailfish OS via a Qt/QML wrapper, and Google Native Client.

Secure copy protocol (SCP) is a means of securely transferring computer files between a local host and a remote host or between two remote hosts. It is based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. "SCP" commonly refers to both the Secure Copy Protocol and the program itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PuTTY</span> Free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application

PuTTY is a free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection. It can also connect to a serial port. The name "PuTTY" has no official meaning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate (text editor)</span> Text editor

The KDE Advanced Text Editor, or Kate, is a source code editor developed by the KDE free software community. It has been a part of KDE Software Compilation since version 2.2, which was first released in 2001. Intended for software developers, it features syntax highlighting, code folding, customizable layouts, multiple cursors and selections, regular expression support, and extensibility via plugins. The text editor's mascot is Kate the Cyber Woodpecker.

Altap Salamander is a freeware orthodox file manager for Microsoft Windows, originally inspired by Norton Commander. In contrast to several other file managers, it has a context aware user interface hiding complexity – for instance, the bottom function list changes on press of modifier keys, just showing the currently available hotkey function set.

This article provides basic comparisons for notable text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the Category of text editor features and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or necessarily all-inclusive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WinSCP</span> File transfer software for Windows

WinSCP is a file manager, SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), WebDAV, Amazon S3, and secure copy protocol (SCP) client for Microsoft Windows. The WinSCP project has released its source code on GitHub under an open source license, while the program itself is distributed as proprietary freeware.

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable file managers.

An SSH client is a software program which uses the secure shell protocol to connect to a remote computer. This article compares a selection of notable clients.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Code::Blocks</span> Free, open source, cross-platform IDE

Code::Blocks is a free, open-source, cross-platform IDE that supports multiple compilers including GCC, Clang and Visual C++. It is developed in C++ using wxWidgets as the GUI toolkit. Using a plugin architecture, its capabilities and features are defined by the provided plugins. Currently, Code::Blocks is oriented towards C, C++, and Fortran. It has a custom build system and optional Make support.

This article compares computer software tools that compare files, and in many cases directories or folders, whether it is their main purpose or as part of more general file management.

The following tables list notable software packages that are nominal IDEs; standalone tools such as source-code editors and GUI builders are not included. These IDEs are listed in alphabetic order of the supported language.

An SSH server is a software program which uses the Secure Shell protocol to accept connections from remote computers. SFTP/SCP file transfers and remote terminal connections are popular use cases for an SSH server.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sublime Text</span> Text editor

Sublime Text is a text and source code editor featuring a minimal interface, syntax highlighting and code folding with native support for numerous programming and markup languages, search and replace with support for regular expressions, an integrated terminal/console window, and customizable themes. Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, its functionality can be expanded with plugins written in Python. Community-contributed plugins can be downloaded and installed via a built-in Package Control system, or written by the user via a Python API. Sublime Text is proprietary software, but can be downloaded for free and used as an evaluation version with no time limit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenMediaVault</span> NAS operating system

OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a free Linux distribution designed for network-attached storage (NAS). The project's lead developer is Volker Theile, who instituted it in 2009. OMV is based on the Debian operating system, and is licensed through the GNU General Public License v3.

CopSSH is an implementation of OpenSSH for Windows. CopSSH offers both SSH client and server functionality and can be used for remote administration of Windows systems. CopSSH contains DLLs from the Cygwin Linux environment and a version of OpenSSH compiled from Cygwin. An administration GUI is also provided as of version 4.0.0.

References

  1. "Far Manager Official Site : download". farmanager.com.
  2. "Far2l". GitHub . 16 October 2021.
  3. Антонов, Игорь (July 2008). Как сказать варезу "Нет!" [How to say "no" to warez]. XAKEP (in Russian) (115): 22–23. Archived from the original on 13 November 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  4. Леха ББ (May 2003). Ручной кодинг с удобствами. Редакторы кода [Comfortable manual coding. Code editors]. XAKEP (in Russian) (30): 60. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  5. Bezroukov, Nikolai (12 August 2009). "FAR – the first OFM that successfully implemented a plug-in concept". The Orthodox File Manager (OFM) Paradigm. Softpanorama University Library. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  6. "Far PlugRing – main". plugring.farmanager.com.
  7. "Announcements of new Plug-Ins – forum.farmanager.com". forum.farmanager.com.
  8. "Анонсы новых плагинов – forum.farmanager.com". forum.farmanager.com.
  9. Far PlugRing. "Top plugins" . Retrieved 29 September 2010.
  10. ГалЈнкин, Сергей (17 May 2004). "Десять лучших дополнений для FAR" [Best ten add-ons for FAR]. ITC.UA, published in "Домашний ПК" (in Russian). Retrieved 12 August 2015.
  11. "Programming FAR plugins – Encyclopedia for Developers". api.farmanager.com.
  12. FarNet and PowerShellFar on Google Code.
  13. LuaFar thread (in Russian).
  14. "far2l". 25 March 2022 via GitHub.
  15. "Far2l". GitHub . 16 October 2021.
  16. "Ubuntu – Details of package far2l in noble".
  17. License.xUSSR.txt (Far EULA for ex-USSR countries citizens). Distributed with older 1.x versions.
  18. Far Group (26 October 2007). "Far Manager – Open Source" . Retrieved 4 February 2009.
  19. Far Group (26 October 2007). "Open Source – Unicode Far (Far forum)" (in Russian). Retrieved 4 February 2009.
  20. Мешков, Георгий (30 October 2007). "Файловый менеджер Far Manager стал свободным" [Far file manager became free]. Компьюлента (in Russian). Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  21. Far Group. "Far 1.x changelog" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2010.