Arch Linux

lustikus

Member

Registered: 2009-11-10

Posts: 262

emacs dired a complete file manager?

Hi

I've been a long time mc user (midnight commander), I even started norton commander by default in my autoexec.bat back in the DOS days

However I get more and more comfortable with emacs and now wonder, if emacs dired could be a possible substitution for the mc.
I start emacs as a daemon and use it as my editor in mc. So why not completely switch to emacs. I also use jabber with emacs and want to give emacs email client a try.
I have not digged into emacs dired very deeply, but before I do that I want to know if I get it to behave like mc with two "browsing windows", file assocications, terminal and stuff?
Are there any long time dired users who can share experiences?

thank you

madalu

Member

Registered: 2009-05-05

Posts: 217

Re: emacs dired a complete file manager?

I have not digged into emacs dired very deeply, but before I do that I want to know if I get it to behave like mc with two "browsing windows", file assocications, terminal and stuff?
Are there any long time dired users who can share experiences?

I have not used mc much, but I find that dired does everything I need.

Two browsing windows are easily created using emacs built-in buffer/window commands (e.g., C-x 2). By default, dired opens up each new directory in a new buffer, so you can go crazy with the windows.

File associations are not exactly intuitive. If you press RET, dired will open the file in emacs. If I want to open a file in the default .mailcap application, I press ! (dired-do-shell-command) or & (dired-do-async-shell-command), which offers the system-defined application as the default completion. You can use external packages, such as openwith.el (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs/OpenWith), if you want to simplify this.

Terminal is simple. Just type "M-x aterm" while in a dired buffer.

There's all the expected good stuff, such as marking files by regexp, batch renaming, etc.

lustikus

Member

Registered: 2009-11-10

Posts: 262

Re: emacs dired a complete file manager?

thanks, openwith sounds interesting.

chpln

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2009-09-17

Posts: 361

Re: emacs dired a complete file manager?

As with madalu, I'm not too familiar with midnight commander but very happy with dired.  It might be worth taking a look at Sunrise Commander, which extends upon dired to provide an mc-like interface.

lustikus

Member

Registered: 2009-11-10

Posts: 262

Re: emacs dired a complete file manager?

wow, thanks, this is just what I was looking for

kolbycrouch

Member

Registered: 2008-07-18

Posts: 218

Re: emacs dired a complete file manager?

I onced tried to do almost everything with emacs, browsing, music, editing, etc..
given you have enough emacs knowledge and the right emacs apps, it can be very efficient.
emacs is such a good OS!!