On Sat, 3 Feb 2001 18:23:56 -0800 (PST), Howard Schwartz wrote:
>> On 2 Feb 01 at 23:39, owner-arachne-digest@arachne wrote:
>> Christian, Clarence, all,
>> I apologize, my quoted description did not apply to DOS Navigator
>> (ND), but to the Russian Necromancer's DOS Navigator (NDN). I really
>> recommend that one to everybody who wants to upgrade from Norton
>> Commander to a really advanced file manager.
> What are the diffeences between Necromancer's Dos Navigator and the
> ``open source project'' dos navigator? Besides the similar names I
> always wondered how these two compared, and how, or if they were
> related to each other.
Hi Howard, Christof, Christian et al;
I have tried to get the NDN but sofar downloads have been impossible.
There does seem to be a relationship with the original DN but I don't
know the details.
I wanted to see if my complaints with DN were resolved with NDN as the
appearance of DN was quite nice and it seemed it might be powerful.
Too bad it wanted a mouse.
I certainly have mostly good things to say about even the simplest of
the NC clones, and that is DOS Commander.
DOS Commander looks very nice, much like modern Midnight Commander
and much better than the version of Volkov Commander available on the
Arachne download page. It is not very finished, having many seemingly
missing functions, but I soon discovered that I could recover all the
functionality I needed by editing the extension file. This is sort of
like mime.cfg in that it specifies DOS actions to take based on the
file's extension. The DC editor is rated highly by some, but I can't
understand why unless they are a lot more psychic than I. There are
commands to mark blocks of text, but no way for ME to guess how to
move, copy, delete or operate on these blocks. This turns out to be
a non-issue, because I can use another editor.
Surprisingly, I have now installed DC on my office computer where it
now provides a LOT more functionality than my previous filemanager.
Volkov Commander ver 4.00.035, the version available for download on
the Arachne page, is much more powerful than DC but the appearance
is enough to burn the hair off the back of your head - right through
your eyeballs. This is the sole reason VC was not installed at my
office. Version 4.00.040, just before the first shareware version,
has a setup program with it that permits changing every color in
every part of every panel to anything you want. This is GREAT. And
please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this version is freeware.
Definitely worth trying. I've already modified the code to customize
the display a bit and I will be using it on my home computer to get
a feel for the differences vs DC.
The best points (aside from the colors) found so far with this version
of VC are the instant ESC to the DOS screen and ESC again back to the
Commander with only a single hit of F10 needed to be out for good.
(confirmation is programmable)
The shareware version, 4.04, appears to be almost the same with a few
bugs in the (separate) setup program fixed.
I also tried UFO (Universal File Operator). It is compatible with LFNs
(I don't care) and it is freeware with a lot of features, but it has the
"hot" look of the original VC (I never saw NC) and no way to change it.
I took a look at Xtreegold and it isn't my cup of tea.
VC is way ahead so far, but I would like to know if NDN requires a mouse.
- Clarence Verge
- Still using Arachne V1.62 ....
