Anytime I see this stuff, I get nostalgic for Norton Commander (it was HUGE in the USSR when I was a kid learning computers in the late 80s and early 90s)

But somehow the reality of how I - and I think most people - use computers today is very different. I don't find myself navigating a shallow directory hierarchy and making file operations too often. A part of it is that all the stuff is in the cloud or at least connected to applications (eg: I am more likely to navigate my coding projects from an IDE than from Shell/MC)

And when I administer eg my home linux system, it seems more likely that I jump to a random far-away directory or edit a specific file, rather than navigating the filesystem MC stye.

I am curious how people are using computers today that MC-like interface is still most suitable.

I use Total Commander on Windows all the time. It is much better than Explorer at so many things, such as:

- Actually letting you navigate the directory structure.

- Making WSL volumes easy to work with.

- Keyboard accessibility.

- Dealing with many tabs and bookmarks.

- A stable interface that doesn't randomly change without my consent.

- Many other things I'll omit for time reasons.

I use MC all the item for both work and personal (and was using NC back in the day before MC). I find it much faster/more productive than all the GUI file explorers I've tried.

Recursively find files -> Panelize alone is worth the price of admission.

Multi-file select.

Two-panel for easy moving/copying files, including to cloud/remote/ssh drives (just mount them).

Quickly go back to previously visited folders in your history.

Compare folders.

etc etc

> I jump to a random far-away directory

Esc-C and type in the path. I do it all the time in MC.

> or edit a specific file

Navigate to folder (above), type first letters of filename to find it, press F4 to edit.

On windows I use mc to navigate around the WSL-2 file system.

On linux I use it to manage remote servers without a window manager (by design, because I don't need one).

I also use it to pass files between my laptops over ssh, between windows and/or linux.

I remember a time when FAR was one of the first things I install on Windows.