Best Freeware File-Manager

  • Thread starter Thread starter MP
  • Start date Start date
(e-mail address removed) (MP):
Best Freeware File-Manager:
http://www.frigate3.com/
http://www.frigate3.com/screenshots.php
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about this product, other than verifying that there
does appear to be a freeware version. (www.frigate3.com/download.php#lite)

What I do know is that this is a company who has been accused, in the
past, of some immoral behaviors. Causing me some degree of hesitance
in automatically assuming it to be a benign company. The story in my
mind was the Treepad one...


=============================================================================
Subject: shameless TreePad copy found....
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
From: Henk Hagedoorn <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 21:53:29 GMT


Hi!

I usually don't like to write negative articles, but in this case I have
no choice!

My name is Henk Hagedoorn, I'm the author of TreePad, that is, I created
the REAL TreePad program.

You can find the real TreePadat http://www.treepad.com It is a freeware
personal database program for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME; it was created
initially in 1996 for Windows 95 and is continously being improved and
updated. Since a week there is also a shareware version available with
many new features, like rich text editing.

Recently someone has decided that it would be very profitable to create
and publish a program, which - at first sight - can be easily mistaken
for the real TreePad program. It's called 'Frigate TreePad', and can be
found at: http://www.winfrigate.com/treepad.htm

The program is not very well made, and offers almost no features if you
compare it to the freeware and shareware versions of the real TreePad
program and it costs $ 24.50

This illegal copy is called 'Frigate TreePad', but has been submitted to
many sites simply as 'TreePad', making visitors believe that this
program is actually the real TreePad. This is truly a shameless act
'name hijacking', and of 'making an easy buck' out the efforts and ideas
of honest and creative people!

Besides, the 'Frigate' copy is a very bad program, in that sense the
real 'TreePad' is in no danger of being out-competed, but it might give
the real TreePad a bad name.

Thank you for your attention!

Henk Hagedoorn
NL Software
Freebyte!
=============================================================================
 
Is there a way to make power desk have the same view in both panes (c
drive on left and c drive on right) like Total Commander does?

Thanks, Mark
 
Kram said:
Is there a way to make power desk have the same view in both panes (c
drive on left and c drive on right) like Total Commander does?
Click to expand...

View Menu, Dual Pane Vertical, gives you two panes which you can set to the
same drive and the same folder if you like.

What is confusing is that each pane is divided into two windows, one tree
window of the folder structure, the other shows the content of the chosen
folder.

In TC you do not (normally) use a tree for navigation, so both panes are
used only for files.
 
Roger Johansson said:
View Menu, Dual Pane Vertical, gives you two panes which you can set to the
same drive and the same folder if you like.

What is confusing is that each pane is divided into two windows, one tree
window of the folder structure, the other shows the content of the chosen
folder.
Click to expand...

If you grab the vertical divider between tree view and files and push it
left until the tree view disappears, and do that in both panes, you get a
view which looks like the typical TC dual pane view, like the classical
Norton Commander view.
 
2x explorer is very good indeed
i have used it for ~2yrs, the latest ver1.4 has pretty much fixed all
annoyiances of previos versions
one reason i like it is because 2x supports keyboard shortcuts for a lot of
activities, which is
much like winexplorer does, but to limited extent
some examples:
F2 - rename file
F3 - view contents of any file
F4 - edit file (text)
F5 - copy file(s) to other pane (with options)
F6 - move file(s)
F12 - show properties of file (same as Alt+Enter in winexplorer)
etc
 
View Menu, Dual Pane Vertical, gives you two panes which you can set
to the same drive and the same folder if you like.

What is confusing is that each pane is divided into two windows, one
tree window of the folder structure, the other shows the content of
the chosen folder.

In TC you do not (normally) use a tree for navigation, so both panes
are used only for files.
Click to expand...

View Menu, deselect Show Tree View, will remove the folder structure from
the current pane. Change to other pane and do the same if you wish.
 
View Menu, deselect Show Tree View, will remove the folder structure from
the current pane. Change to other pane and do the same if you wish.
Click to expand...

Exactly. You beat me to it. There doesn't seem to be key-sequence to
produce this though, just the menu option.

The various views of folders you want can be saved as Desktop shortcuts
also; for instance, I have a single pane view with no tree and minimal
menu items showing for my Downloads folder, while I have a horizontal,
two-pane view with extensive menu items / toolbars showing for My Computer
folder view. I have several other icons set for various other folder views
depending on use. After a view is set-up, just click Options->Save Settings
Now. Make sure Options->Save Settings On Exit is unchecked and you will get
the same view each time the Desktop shortcut for a particular folder view
is clicked.
 
Power Desk 5 is the best I've found.
Click to expand...

I've been using PowerDesk (currently the Pro 5 paid version) since it's
Mijenix days (around 1998 or so). I've had the pay version since trying the
free one for a short while, so it's hard to know whether I could get by
with the current free version. I'd certainly give it a try, though.

I have tried the 2xExplorer and xplorer2 that others have mentioned, and
they just didn't cut it by comparison. Don't ask me exactly what the issues
were now, all I know is it took a very short time to determine that I
already had a better solution in PowerDesk and the others were removed.

One question: all the comments about Total Commander in another recent
thread have me somewhat intrigued, but most comments regarding panes
revolve around a "Dual Pane Vertical" view. I rarely use PowerDesk in "Dual
Pane Vertical" view as most folder nesting and long file names make it
difficult to see everything without constantly adjusting scroll-bars. I
almost always use PowerDesk in "Dual Pane Horizontal" view as it allows for
seeing the tree, folders, and many more attribute columns. Does Total
Commander allow for horizontal, 2-pane view or just vertical? If it
doesn't, I'd have to consider that a major shortcoming (certainly others
will not see it that way)?
 
Art Iculos Libres said:
Does Total
Commander allow for horizontal, 2-pane view or just vertical? If it
doesn't, I'd have to consider that a major shortcoming (certainly others
will not see it that way)?
Click to expand...

Long files names are seen as tool tips displayed when you let the mouse
cursor rest on a file name more than half a second, normally only the
beginning of the file name is displayed.
The extension is shown in its own column, so you can see what type of file
it is even if the file name is very long.
The various views of folders you want can be saved as Desktop shortcuts
also; for instance, I have a single pane view with no tree and minimal
menu items showing for my Downloads folder, while I have a horizontal,
Click to expand...

In TC we can save favorite folders in a list which is easy to get to by
double clicking on the top of one pane.
In that favorite folder list we can choose one or both panes, which means
that we can have favorite pairs of folders, or favorite single folders.

With the tabbed panes in TC6 I guess the possibilities are even more
advanced, I have not tried that myself yet.

This does not change the display to horisontal panes, though.
I have never seen horisontal panes in TC, and there is no need for it
because we see long file names as tool tips.
 
Art Iculos Libres wrote in


Both.

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Click to expand...

I checked TC's website and it seems that TC and PowerDesk are fairly
closely related. I guess the finer points could only be brought out through
testing side by side for a while.

I tried Directory Opus once, it didn't offer anything special, and it
should have been able to wash my car for the $75.00/license they charge.

Back to freeware now.

Thanks.
 
Long files names are seen as tool tips displayed when you let the mouse
cursor rest on a file name more than half a second, normally only the
beginning of the file name is displayed.
The extension is shown in its own column, so you can see what type of file
it is even if the file name is very long.


In TC we can save favorite folders in a list which is easy to get to by
double clicking on the top of one pane.
In that favorite folder list we can choose one or both panes, which means
that we can have favorite pairs of folders, or favorite single folders.
Click to expand...

PowerDesk has favorites also, but clicking on a favorite just takes you
directly to the location; it doesn't change the Window setup of
PowerDesk...if it is in 2 pane with all menus activated, clicking on a
favorite will still maintain the 2 pane settings with all menus
visible...no way to change that. You'd have to manually change the view if
needed. Clicking on the Desktop link does, however, maintain any
customization to PowerDesk for that particular folder from session to
session.
With the tabbed panes in TC6 I guess the possibilities are even more
advanced, I have not tried that myself yet.

This does not change the display to horisontal panes, though.
I have never seen horisontal panes in TC, and there is no need for it
because we see long file names as tool tips.
Click to expand...

Per Bjorn Simonsen (see his post), TC has both horizontal and vertical
panes, so maybe that's in the newer version you don't have?

Guess we should get back on the topic of freeware before someone gets PO'd.

Thanks.
 
Looketh like crippleware to me with standard and "professional" versions for pay.
Click to expand...

It is also a very irritating program when it is uninstalled.
I didn't like it at all, so I uninstalled it yesterday.

During the uninstall it wanted me to choose a reason and fill in a form as
to why I uninstalled it. I ignored that.

It tried to contact its homebase, without asking for permission or telling
me about it, my firewall stopped it from doing that.

It started an email to its home, I killed that one too.

Nasty crap, is my judgement.
 
One question: all the comments about Total Commander in another recent
thread have me somewhat intrigued, but most comments regarding panes
revolve around a "Dual Pane Vertical" view. I rarely use PowerDesk in "Dual
Pane Vertical" view as most folder nesting and long file names make it
difficult to see everything without constantly adjusting scroll-bars. I
almost always use PowerDesk in "Dual Pane Horizontal" view as it allows for
seeing the tree, folders, and many more attribute columns. Does Total
Commander allow for horizontal, 2-pane view or just vertical? If it
doesn't, I'd have to consider that a major shortcoming (certainly others
will not see it that way)?
Click to expand...

My feelings about PowerDesk 5 are exactly the same as yours. I
tried 2xExplorer, and it was OK, but I didn't like the way it
displayed files as much as PowerDesk. I never use Dual Pane
Vertical, but use Dual Pane Horizontal (one frame over the other)
for all my more complex and extended drag and drop file sorting.
 
Roger Johansson said:
It is also a very irritating program when it is uninstalled.
I didn't like it at all, so I uninstalled it yesterday.

During the uninstall it wanted me to choose a reason and fill in a form as
to why I uninstalled it. I ignored that.

It tried to contact its homebase, without asking for permission or telling
me about it, my firewall stopped it from doing that.

It started an email to its home, I killed that one too.
Click to expand...

Malevolent snake-ware !!
Nasty crap, is my judgement.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sparing the rest of us.

An add-note on the company's history, besides the hijacking of Treepad.
A groups.google search shows they have a history of dirtying ACF with
advertisements for their payware file manager. They got flamed for it
each time. When I first saw here that they'd finally put forth a free
version, I had a naive thought that perhaps the message finally got
through to them. Yet nope, on the contrary: their answer to freeware
was to concoct a reptilian call-home creature.
 
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