FinalCommander
Los otros commander
Esta página es un documento del repositorio y está en inglés.
The commander landscape (survey, Oct 2026)
Why this file: before specifying FinalCommander we catalogued what already exists, what each project is written in, how it is licensed, and which of its ideas are worth taking. "Commander" here means an orthodox file manager (OFM): two equal panels, a command line under them, a function-key bar at the bottom, keyboard first.
Legend for Take: ✅ idea we want, 🟡 maybe, ❌ deliberately not.
1. The ancestors (DOS / text mode)
| Project | Years | Language | Licence | Notes | Take |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norton Commander | 1986–1998 | asm / C | proprietary, discontinued | Defined the genre: 2 panels, F1..F10 bar, command line, built-in viewer (F3), tree, archive browsing via plugins | ✅ the whole grammar |
| Volkov Commander | 1991– | asm | freeware (closed) | 64 KB NC clone, legendary speed | ✅ "stay small/fast" |
| DOS Navigator | 1991–1999 | Turbo Pascal | source released 1999 under BSD-3, but "compromised" (bundled Turbo Vision / Virtual Pascal terms) | Tabs/windows inside the manager, spreadsheet, terminal, multiple panels | ✅ multi-panel windows, 🟡 do not vendor its code |
| NDN (Necromancer's DOS Navigator) | 2000s | Pascal | DN-derived, unclear | DN fork, still used on Windows console | 🟡 reference only |
Demos Commander (deco) | 1990s–2001 | C | GPL | First serious Unix OFM, pre-mc | reference |
2. Windows
| Project | Language | Licence | Notes | Take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
FAR Manager (FarGroup/FarManager) | C++ | BSD-3-Clause | The reference implementation for us: panels, plugin API, internal viewer/editor, macros (Lua), dialogs API, huge plugin ecosystem | ✅ primary model |
| Total Commander | Delphi | proprietary shareware | Tabs, multi-rename, synchronise dirs, FTP, packer/WFX/WLX/WCX plugin ABIs, branch view | ✅ features, keymap profile; ❌ no code/resources |
MTN2 (Laex/MTN2) | Delphi (FireMonkey/Skia) | MPL-2.0 | Modern DN/FAR tribute: TUI grid drawn on a GPU canvas, ConPTY console, tabs, SFTP, archives as folders, native + WebAssembly plugins, JSON keymap/themes, Linux TUI + SDL2 builds | ✅ wasm plugins, keymap/theme files, real PTY; ❌ the GPU/SDL window — we stay strictly terminal |
| Directory Opus | C++ | proprietary | The heavyweight; scripting, metadata, FAYT | 🟡 ideas |
| Multi Commander / FreeCommander / Unreal Commander / WinNc / SpeedCommander / Altap Salamander | mixed | freeware or proprietary | TC-alikes | 🟡 |
| Nomad.NET, xplorer², One Commander, XYplorer, Q-Dir | mixed | proprietary/freeware | ❌ | |
| Explorer++, Files | C++ / C# | GPL-3 / MIT | not orthodox (Explorer-like) | ❌ |
3. Unix / cross-platform desktop
| Project | Language | Licence | Notes | Take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Krusader | C++/Qt (KDE) | GPL-2.0-or-later | The most complete OFM feature set on Linux: synchroniser, queue manager, MountMan, checksums, split/combine, UserActions, key-binding profiles ("swap easily to other commanders") | ✅ feature list, ✅ keymap-profile idea |
| Double Commander | Free Pascal / Lazarus | GPL-2.0-or-later | TC-compatible defaults on Win/Linux/macOS, cm_* command vocabulary, WCX/WFX/WLX plugin reuse | ✅ cm_* command model |
| GNOME Commander | C++/GTK | GPL-2.0-or-later | GTK OFM, python plugins | 🟡 |
| muCommander | Java | GPL-3.0-or-later | Runs anywhere incl. Solaris/OpenVMS; virtual filesystems | 🟡 |
| Nimble Commander | Obj-C++/macOS | GPL-3.0 (free since 1.6) | Best-in-class macOS OFM; native feel, VFS, batch rename | ✅ macOS UX notes |
File Commander (VioletGiraffe/file-commander) | C++/Qt | Apache-2.0 | TC-like, Win/mac/Linux, plugin viewers | 🟡 |
| Tux Commander, Worker, emelFM2, SpaceFM, Xfe, 4Pane, Sunflower | C/C++/Python | GPL family | older GTK OFMs | reference |
| Commander One, ForkLift, CRAX Commander, Marta, Path Finder | Swift/Obj-C | proprietary | macOS | ❌ |
| Ghost Commander, Total Commander for Android, Material Files | Java/Kotlin | GPL-3 / freeware | mobile OFMs | 🟡 future |
4. Terminal (TUI)
| Project | Language | Licence | Model | Take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Midnight Commander (mc) | C | GPL-3.0-or-later | The Unix standard: 2 panels, subshell, VFS (extfs, fish, sftp, tar), mcedit/mcview/mcdiff, learn-keys, panelize | ✅ subshell integration, VFS model, keymap profile |
| far2l | C++ | GPL-2.0 | FAR 2 ported to Unix: full plugin set (NetRocks SFTP/FTP/SMB/NFS/WebDAV/S3, multiarc, colorer), TTY + GUI backends, X11 clipboard, far2l extensions over ssh | ✅ behavioural reference (read, never copy) |
| far2m | C++ | GPL-2.0 | far2l + FAR3 Lua macro engine | ✅ macro design reference |
| vifm | C | GPL-2.0 | Two panels with vi modality, own VFS-ish fuse mounts | ✅ vi keymap profile |
| ranger / joshuto / lf / nnn / clifm / felix | Python / Rust / Go / C | GPL-3 / LGPL-3 / MIT / BSD-2 / GPL-2 | single-pane column browsers, not OFM | 🟡 previews, async design |
| yazi | Rust | MIT | The current state of the art in Rust TUI FM: async I/O, Lua plugins (ya pkg), image/video/PDF previews, multi-tab, SFTP VFS | ✅ async engine + preview pipeline, ✅ plugin packaging |
| broot | Rust | MIT | tree + fuzzy navigation | ✅ fuzzy "goto" |
| xplr | Rust | MIT | programmable explorer, Lua config | ✅ config model |
| superfile | Go | MIT | polished UI | 🟡 visual polish |
| termscp | Rust | MIT | remote transfer TUI (SFTP/SCP/FTP/S3/SMB) | ✅ remote backends |
| Cloud Commander | JS | MIT (unverified) | dual-pane in the browser | 🟡 future web UI |
5. Rust prior art (dual-pane, as of Oct 2026)
Small and mostly young — this is the gap FinalCommander targets. None of these is a full FAR/TC-class commander today.
| Project | Toolkit | Note |
|---|---|---|
Harunx9/sfm | TUI | vim + TC inspired, on crates.io |
jaroslavpachola/rcmd | ratatui (+egui window mode) | mc keybindings, archive and FTP/SFTP panels |
mg4466/ferric-commander | TUI | no async runtime, slow ops on threads |
anjunar/rust-commander (RCommander) | GTK4 | Win/mac/Linux, SFTP |
gr3p/rust-commander | GTK4 | F-key workflow, early |
DoubyCz/douby-commander | GTK4 | Double Commander tribute |
ice-commander/app | GTK4 | local + FTP/SFTP/WebDAV |
sonatina-dream/ferrous-commander | GPUI (macOS) | Commander One behaviour |
Licences of these were not verified; treat them as prior art to learn from, not to copy.
6. What the survey tells us
- The feature ceiling is FAR + Total Commander + Krusader. Everything else is a subset.
Our feature matrix (
02-features.md) is built as the union of those three, plus the modern additions from yazi/MTN2 (async previews, wasm/Lua plugins, JSON/TOML config). - Nobody owns "orthodox file manager in Rust" yet. The Rust entries are either single-pane browsers (yazi, joshuto, xplr) or very young GTK4 apps. A complete, portable, complete, portable, terminal-only commander is an open slot.
- Strictly TUI is a positioning choice, not a limitation. The GUI-toolkit commanders (Krusader, Double Commander, the young GTK4 Rust ones) already crowd that space; the open slot is a terminal commander with a modern engine that works identically over SSH.
- Keymap profiles are the migration path. Krusader, Double Commander, MTN2 and mc all ship
alternative key-binding sets. We make that a first-class feature (
far,mc,tc,nc,viprofiles) — see03-keymap.md. - Plugins decide longevity. FAR's and TC's ecosystems are why they survived 30 years.
We need a stable ABI from day one: WASM (sandboxed, portable) + Lua (scripting) + an
optional native C ABI. See
spec/09-plugins.md. - Licence-wise the clean path is FAR (BSD) as the model, with GPL projects (far2l, mc,
Krusader, DC) used as behavioural references only. See
01-licensing.md.