Re: Norton Commander? (fwd)

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hello!

Below is the same reply as the one I sent in private.

> mc_duplicate_directories.zip -> shows duplicate directories problem

I don't see any duplicate directories.  I remember fixing it myself long
ago, certainly more than a year ago.

> mc_segfault_and_coredump.zip -> crashes mc

No crash for me.  I think it was fixed long ago.

> There is another way that mc crashes than mc_segfault_and_coredump.zip
> makes it to do, but I could not find in last hour a zip file that would
> crash mc spectacularily, be valid, and be under 50k, will keep looking.

Ok.

> could be happenning on either cases. I do alot of work with various
> archivers (I like collecting useless junk), as well as all my Linuxen
> are servers only so all my mc'ing is through ssh/screen (does that count
> as xterm'ing?). Currently my sollution is to have mc alias that first
> overwrites /.mc/ with contents from /.mc.good/ so that it never looses
> my key settings.

No, if you need to copy the config files, then you have a bigger problem.  
The problems I described don't result in corrupted config files and can be
worked around by restarting mc.  I think it was also fixed, but not by me.  
There was a discussion about interrupted syscalls long, long ago.

> The Midnight Commander 4.5.52

Well, I wish I could answer this in the mailing list, since your message
would strengthen my argument.  I think that we should be pushing version
numbers more actively.  Users are using years old versions and don't
realize how many things have changed.  Even a year old version 4.5.55 has
many fixed for your problems, let alone 4.6.0-pre1.  To bad I cannot make
4.6 alone, since the TODO list grows faster than I can take care of the
items in it.

It's true that very few new things are added, but users today are more
concerned about stability than about new features.

> when I tried it again I got:
>
>      Inconsistant EXTfs archive
>
> some garbage in red color, and within few keystrokes mc segfaulted again.

Garbage in red color is still not fixed, but it's in TODO for 4.6.0-pre2.

> while a zip file which shows duplicated directories under f3 shows:
>    /Ico/someSubDirFile
>    /Ico/AnotherSubDirFile
>    /Ico/SubDirFile3
>    /Ico/

Yes, that's exactly what I fixed.

> how about:
>   - cannot type own commands:
>      cd anything  - instead of changing directory on server changes it
>                     locally on file system, forcing trying to reconnect

Fixed.

>      site who     - you just cant

mc is a file manager, not an ftp client.

>   - no ability to see the log of what really happends with communication
>     with server. Needed if such features as typing own commands is to be
>     allowed (like site who, or site kick, etc). Helps debugging as well

It's a feature request.  With the current shortage of developers it's not 
going to happen.

>   - file upload copies file first to some temp spot (why?) and then
>     really uploads it to server, annoying when tranferring large files

I cannot reproduce it.

>   - disconnections are really trouble some, i haveto often pretend that
>     am connecting to completly new server for it to actually reconnect
>     (by trying different hostname)

I mentioned that.

>   - background mode, is there a way to see how background mode is doing?
>     is there one thread that does background mode, so everything that
>     is assigned to background mode is sent to background queue? or is
>     each background task started immidiatelly? Found this confusing

Fixed after 4.6.0-pre1.  It was a simple stupid bug that suppressed all 
messages.

>   - wishlist:
>     - fxp support.

This was requested already.  I'm adding it in TODO for "after 4.6.0".

>     - tsl ftp support

I have no idea what it is.

>     - ftp remembered list

Again I don't know what you mean, but I you could not find the hotlist,
the directory history and the history in the FTP dialog, then we have big
problems with the user interface.  Did you look in the menu?

>     - possibility:
>           merge ftp capabilities with pFTP (http://pftp.suxx.sk/pftp/)

If you want to use C++ in mc, I suggest that you start your own project.  
It will be more effective.  You can also try to revive "last file manager" 
(search for it on Google) - it's written in Python.

>  > That said, I cannot say that even those problems are being actively
>  > fixed.  Nobody works on this project full-time.
>
> I understand this, thats why I did not want to be really whining and 
> asking for fixing-bugs/adding features when I know someone else propably 
> will anyways.

I think you don't understand.  If nobody finds a problem, it won't be
fixed.  The reason why TODO grows is because users find problems so
serious that the developers cannot release the next version without
fixing them.

> Currently just got the 4.6.0.pre1 and trying to compile and read full 
> documentation to see if some features that am missing from wincmd are 
> there already. Advanced Rename Tool (cltr-t), directory synchronize 
> (like in wincmd), directory history (alt-down), directory bookmarks 
> (ctrl-d), easy volume/mount point switching (altf1/f2) (that also would 
> come in handy with working with ftps, where we could pretend that ftp is 
> a new fake mountpoint so that we can access it through the volume/mount 
> point switching). I started reading some of TTY docs which mention that 
> some key combinations are reserved by TTY for own transmission controll 
> (I believe that is the case with either alt or ctrl with f1/f2).

I think the biggest problem is the interface that is very hard to improve
due to reliance on a very old text-mode widget library.  Many things you
mentioned already exist, but users cannot find them because of
inconvenient interface.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin