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Is there a good customizable dual-pane file manager for Mac like Total Commander / Far Manager in Windows, or like Krusader / Midnight Commander in Linux?

I used to work on Windows for quite a while and mostly used Far Manager and sometimes Total Commander, then I switched to Ubuntu Linux and used Krusader, now I switched to Mac OS (Snow Leopard) and I'm having a hard time trying to find a good file manager...

Many of the existing applications are trying to replace the Finder with "multimedia capabilities nobody cares about in file manager - IMHO" (Path Finder, ForkLift), some of them are almost good dual-pane file managers (couldn't remember examples), but none of them worked for me mostly because of one reason: I couldn't integrate my file/folder comparison utility (Araxis Merge for Mac) with them...

The way it worked for me in Windows and Linux is that I was setting the cursor on one file in the left pane, then setting the right-pane cursor on another file in right pane, then I pressed a hotkey that launched Araxis Merge with those to files/folders comparison results.

It was very easy to set up in Far Manager (Windows) and Krusader (Linux, actually in Linux I used "Meld" instead of Araxis Merge...)

The tool I'm looking for doesn't necessarily has to be free...

Thank you!

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Path Finder is the best that's out there and really has very little to do with "multimedia capabilities." OS X is not going to be Linux no matter what you do. – Hasaan Chop May 7 '10 at 2:55
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migrated from serverfault.com May 6 '10 at 23:08

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5 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

Maybe you could try TotalFinder. It is actually a mod of the normal Finder instead of a separate application. It is actually quite nice. Doesn't merge folders, though.

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I really love this. Same developer as Visor--the Terminal SIMBL plugin. Both are great. – Chris Serra May 3 '11 at 18:42
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up vote 1 down vote

I can't help you with integration with a file/folder comparison tool, but since you mentioned Midnight Commander on Linux, I thought I should point out that you can run Midnight Commander on Mac OS X.

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up vote 1 down vote

A folder merge plugin has been made for Path Finder

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up vote 1 down vote

Have a look at Double Commander as well (cross-platform and open-source) - http://doublecmd.sourceforge.net/

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Sorry, I didn't try it, but it looks like a viable solution. I've already sold my Mac and now using Ubuntu Linux + Krusader. – Alex Kovshovik May 27 '11 at 18:09
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up vote 0 down vote

Thank you for all your answers, but I think I found the best solution that works for me. Araxis Merge for Mac lets you save comparisons... I've created a several folder comparison presets (for folders I compare most often - different Subversion branches of our application), then I put them into folder and put that folder into "stacks" on my Dock.

Works nice - two clicks open my desired comparison, I could just double click on pair of files with differences and it ones file comparison window.

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