[HN Gopher] Directory Opus - King of the Dual Panes
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       Directory Opus - King of the Dual Panes
        
       Author : nickt
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2022-12-28 16:21 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.datagubbe.se)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.datagubbe.se)
        
       | bityard wrote:
       | I would love it if modern apps were this configurable, catering
       | to wide flexibility and putting the user in control, rather than
       | focusing nearly exclusively on the developer's personal design
       | aesthetic du jour.
       | 
       | Closest thing we have in the Linux world right now is KDE but
       | even there I still come across things I wish were more
       | configurable. Much of the time, I find someone else has made the
       | same request but the devs turn it down with, "nah, that will just
       | confuse new users."
        
         | Sakos wrote:
         | Directory Opus is probably the main reason why Windows remains
         | my primary platform. There's just nothing out there that
         | compares, particularly not on Linux.
        
           | heywoodlh wrote:
           | > Directory Opus is probably the main reason why Windows
           | remains my primary platform.
           | 
           | I'd love to hear your reasons for why Directory Opus is so
           | good.
           | 
           | I'm a Linux/MacOS/Windows (mostly Linux) user who lives
           | exclusively in the command line for all my file management.
        
             | Semaphor wrote:
             | I find it far more comfortable. Dual explorer dual pane is
             | the most efficient way to handle files, for me.
        
         | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
         | All of the pre GTK+/Qt X11 apps are highly configurable via X
         | resources. The new kids came along and ruined what was a
         | consistent system for managing settings.
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | Personally I never really got into dual-pane Directory Opus but
       | Directory Opus 5 sure was a fabulous total replacement for
       | Workbench, I think I used that from the time I got it until I
       | finally left my Amiga for a Mac. Ever since moving to OSX my Macs
       | have mostly run in column view.
       | 
       | I wonder how lost I would be if I still had my A1200 and could
       | turn it on to try and poke at my personalized DOpus5 setup. It's
       | been a little more than twenty years; what was once muscle memory
       | is probably just vague hints of "this used to be a thing I did".
        
         | riedel wrote:
         | Actually DOpus was the only dual pane Filemanager (maybe with
         | the exception of Ghostcommander on android lately) I actually
         | got used to and was really fond of. I still wonder how working
         | with floppy disks (two drives and a 4MB ram extension in my
         | case) was so smooth in my memory.
        
           | stedguv wrote:
           | I'm a huge fan of DOpus on Windows. Double Commander is the
           | closest I've found for Linux (it has gtk and qt5 versions for
           | Gnome and KDE).
        
       | unwind wrote:
       | I wrote a Linux filemanager very heavily inspired by DOpus way
       | back, it's called "gentoo" [1] but I don't think it has a site
       | online which is silly. It's a bit old, but quite configurable and
       | I believe it's still in a few distro package repos.
       | 
       | [1] Yes I was and am aware of the name collision with the distro.
       | We exchanged emails and it was cool.
        
       | neals wrote:
       | I wonder about the financials on something like DOPUS. They've
       | always been high quality, never bloated, easy on the license. Is
       | that actually a valid businessmodel?
        
       | thecrumb wrote:
       | DirOpus is always the one thing I miss when I use Linux or Mac.
       | Just a fantastic tool.
        
         | riedel wrote:
         | Looks like worker [1] is an actively developed clone, that very
         | much looks like the original (haven't tried it yet).
         | 
         | [1] http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/index.html
        
       | suncore wrote:
       | I loved directory opus so much on the Amiga that I eventuelly
       | wrote not one but three variants of it for Linux, albeit much
       | simpler. The latest one I still use and maintain and you're
       | welcome to try it at https://github.com/suncore/dflynav
        
       | daneel_w wrote:
       | "DOpus" was great, though I preferred DirWork, a much lighter
       | ditto which still ticked pretty much all of the boxes for me.
        
       | mistertrotsky wrote:
       | Directory Opus is the perfect example of an ultra-high-quality
       | Windows application. I love it.
        
       | Semaphor wrote:
       | Been a customer since 2005, Version 8 back then, they are now on
       | version 12. Considering that they only charge for major versions,
       | that's pretty impressive.
       | 
       | It's in my personal top 3 of must-have windows software (together
       | with EmEditor and MediaMonkey)
        
       | hd363gvcYf wrote:
       | I really enjoyed using Opus over the years. (early to late 90s on
       | various Amigas)
       | 
       | I used it more than the Workbench stuff as it made administration
       | quite easy.
        
       | eternityforest wrote:
       | Always cool to see DOpus mentioned. I've never tried it and don't
       | plan to(Windows only and expensive) but it's rare to see a GUI
       | app with quite that level of devoted following.
        
       | awsmith wrote:
       | For those who are fans of DOpus but don't want to use Windows or
       | pull out an Amiga, I've found Worker [1] on Linux to be an
       | excellent substitute. You may have to compile it yourself, but I
       | switched to it years ago and haven't looked back since.
       | 
       | [1] http://www.boomerangsworld.de/worker/
        
       | fraXis wrote:
       | I used to use Directory Opus when I had an Amiga. :-)
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus
        
       | c_prompt wrote:
       | For many years, DO was my only explorer. It was perfect in every
       | way.
       | 
       | Then XYplorer [1] offered a pro license freebee (looks like back
       | in 2019 [2]) and I gave it a try. I'm still using that same
       | version (15.90) from so many years ago. Never looked back.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.xyplorer.com/
       | 
       | [2] https://www.xyplorer.com/freezer.php
        
         | LunarAurora wrote:
         | I'm also more familiar with the excellent XYplorer.
         | 
         | I could not find any in depth comparison with Directory Opus.
         | These two have accumulated so much features over the years, it
         | became a kind of expertise to know them in detail.
         | 
         | The chance of a dual-expert willing to clearly expand on his
         | experience is small. I wish more tech journalism was on this
         | level. Instead, the verge had (at least) 4 articles in 2022 on
         | windows explorer getting... tabs.
        
         | fraXis wrote:
         | I love XYplorer!
         | 
         | And to this day it's still written in VB6. :-)
         | 
         | https://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=VB6
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-28 23:02 UTC)