Wal Commander
Version: Web: http://wcm.linderdaum.com
Even though the days of Norton Commander are long over, many computer users still prefer to use two-panel file managers. Perhaps you've heard of MidnightCommander? [See HotPicks, p58, LXF185.] This is the famous Unix clone of Norton's original shell, and it is such a classic that it requires that you run it from the command line. WalCommanderGitHub Edition is a little different: it's a true X11 application. (The ‘GitHub Edition’ part denotes that it was derived from the original WalCommander.)
Although it has the classic key bindings (F5 for copying, F8 for deleting, and so on), WalCommander only looks like an old-fashioned double-panel shell. When you start exploring the manager’s features, you'll find lots of power tools under the hood. For instance, the default text editor (accessed via F4) supports syntax highlighting for all the languages you may need (C, C++, sh, Perl, PHP, XML, HTML, Pascal, SQL) and is capable of transcoding characters to another encoding. The command line accepts input both in DOS and Bash syntax.
WalCommander is also good at communicating, with built-in SMB and FTP/SFTP support, and is perfectly easy to navigate with standard Alt+<letter> shortcuts for controls with highlighted letters.
Generally, WalCommander's look and feel resembles a Windows application like FarManager and that’s true of many of the ways in which it works. For instance, you can set it to show spaces as dots, switch folder icons, control auto-completion and the way hidden files display, and, of course, change appearance settings, including fonts, colours, and buttons.
As its name suggests, Wal CommanderGitHubEdition can be checked out from its official Git repository, but there are many precompiled binary packages available to download for both Deb and RPM, so you're not forced to compile it from source unless you want to.
The application is monolithic and stores everything in its main binary file wcm. Documentation is included in the package, and if you're a first-time user of a two-panel file manager, we advise you to read it first.
“It looks old-fashioned but you’ll find power tools under the hood.”