8 ms·

Marta, file manager for macOS, goes beta

217 points by yanex 8y ago

cyrusmg 8y ago
The file manager seems to be closed-source[1], does anyone know of any good open-source alternatives ? [1] https://github.com/marta-file-manager/ https://github.com/marta-file-manager/
- darek 8y ago
  I've been using Nimble Commander for a while now. Snappy, similar to Total Commander on Windows and I love it. The developer recently made it open source and published the code on GitHub here: https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander I'm not sure if that's the kind of open source you were looking for, but may be worth checking out.
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    Wow. When I used macOS, I used this manager a lot and it's awesome. Now Open Source, it's even more awesome.
    - tambourine_man 8y ago
      I didn’t know it was made open source either. Great news.
  - pbalau 8y ago
    Total Commander is the best piece of software I ever used! I even bought a license for it, they sent me a cd with an installer and the license and I promptly lost it. At some point i even had tc as a replacement for the Windows shell. These days i dont care that much about where my files are, I have a "work" folder and thats that. My music is on spotify, my videos on netflix/amazon prime/now tv, i dont take that many meaningful pictures anymore and I dont see a reason to care about files anymore. But Total Commander was my life for a very long time, along with piracy :-P
- josteink 8y ago
  While I think downvoting this comment is unfair, it should be noted that if you care about your OS and tools being open-source, you probably shouldn’t be running OSX in the first place. I might even suggest running Linux. Oh my :)
  - ovao 8y ago
    Limiting the number of entities you need to trust with closed-source software is perfectly sound wisdom, but that number doesn’t need to be zero to be useful. That’s not to say Marta’s author has any ill intent, because I doubt he or she does.
  - mrgordon 8y ago
    This all or nothing mentality doesn't often end up being useful in practice. For example, try doing some deep learning on Linux with CUDA without installing closed source NVIDIA drivers. The important detail is who provided the software and in this case most people are going to trust Apple or NVIDIA significantly more than a small third-party software developer they've never heard of. (FWIW many of us tried running Linux as a desktop OS but found the UI and driver situation to be abysmal so it continues to just power our servers)
    - ReverseCold 8y ago
      Linux is actually good now for desktop use. I install it (= Fedora or Antergos w/ GNOME) on everything now and it just works(tm). Not a single thing has been broken across two modern PCs and a laptop.
      - azinman2 8y ago
        Question is “good for what?” It simply doesn’t have the polish, or flexibility that I’d need to effectively stay on it for long. I always end up spending longggg times customizing things only to feel little integration, little support, and a lack of decent third party software. Sketch is Mac only. Spotify barely has a Linux client. Certainly no photoshop, medocire native email clients, zero IM that integrate with any networks I use (sms/iMessage), etc etc. Yes there’s lots of options as a webpage, but that’s a shallow substitute. If you happen to need only the stuff that’s available, and your workflow is largely CLI-driven, then it’s probably fine. Otherwise it’s macOS for me.
- Digital-Citizen 8y ago
  If that's the case (and I take it the absence of a source code repository is how you're reaching your conclusion), that's ironic. The Marta webpage linked to this story includes "Because I want to own what I pay money for." yet one never truly owns proprietary software regardless of price; one can never really tell what it is doing, and users are prohibited from inspecting the program to find out, as well as sharing copies (modified for sure, often verbatim copies too).
  - yanex 8y ago
    Marta author here. I agree with you that the open source software has higher level of trust than the proprietary one, but I afraid I just can't maintain Marta steadily for a long time if it was open-sourced (and then forever free). And I doubt the community will do that instead of me. In case if you're interested, I expressed my thoughts about this here [1] earlier. I do promise, though, that Marta will never collect personal data, display ads or do some other bad things. I just don't see any sense in that, and I'd rather have a good reputation. [1] https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues/194 https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues/19...
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Is there a reason to not license it under a dual license? Have the source code open with a non commercial license and also distribute the binaries under a commercial license. I’m not sure that it will have a significant impact on the revenue since most people would likely opt out and purchase the binary rather than building it on their own.
      - yanex 8y ago
        According to what I know, in case of desktop applications, the revenue drops almost to zero, unless you have a Free and Pro versions. "Free edition" then lacks almost all features that make the product competitive, and it's not really good. It's reasonable, though, if your potential user base is totally different. For example, IntelliJ IDEA has a Community edition that lacks enterprise frameworks support, but that's not a problem for "single users" because they basically don't do any enterprise. But it looks like it won't work for Marta. So I'd rather choose the Sublime Text strategy (though I think that Sublime costs too much).
- BozeWolf 8y ago
  I still use midnight commander every now and then. It is terminal based though. It is open source, feature packed and works cross platform.
  - v_lisivka 8y ago
    I also use mc everyday, because it gives huge performance boost when working in shell, but it's time for face lift.
saagarjha 8y ago
What does this app provide that Finder doesn't? I see something about a background operation queue, which Finder does, archive support, which I have a QuickLook plugin for, and gadgets, which I can accomplish with services.
- dymk 8y ago
  Fully keyboard accessible, which at best Finder.app does badly. IDE-esque "any command" search for operations instead of going through a menu bar.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    Those would have been my top two picks also. I'd add: embedded terminal, and plugins. Services are no alternative - try using one, for example, to show/hide hidden files. You'll have time to make a coffee while it's operating.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    > IDE-esque "any command" search for operations instead of going through a menu bar. Command+Shift+/, then type your command?
- mephitix 8y ago
  If you've ever used Total Commander or even Windows 7+ native file explorer it's very hard to go back to or use Finder. Keyboard shortcuts, tokenizing/detokenizing file paths, opening in terminal, searching within files, search for duplicate files, bulk rename, plugins, and more. Whenever I have a new Mac I spend a couple minutes customizing Finder: adding things like the Path button, showing the Path bar, showing the Status bar, etc. I get that it's supposed to be simple but it's surprising to me that such basic things aren't in the starting configuration. I do love the spacebar preview though :)
  - eridius 8y ago
    What does "tokenizing/detokenizing file paths" mean? "Open in terminal" is actually a built-in Service. It's not enabled by default, but you can go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services and enable it, and even give it a hotkey. Finder also has done bulk rename for a few years now.
crispinb 8y ago
On a first look, this looks fantastic. Just what I've been waiting for. Time will tell -- I have thought this about a couple of other file managers, but irritations have always eventually surfaced to drive me back to Finder. The ST-style command palette alone makes this worth a decent evaluation. First-run experience was a bit odd - Marta opened up with both panes empty, and all actions unavailable. I had to go to Go->Volumes in each pane and select a volume to show up. That's OK, it's a beta. Seems great so far.
yeasayer 8y ago
I don't like that file operations are controlled by F1-F8 keys. This UX is unfriendly to macOS environment. Most users' F-row is in media keys mode by default, so you have to hold Fn otherwise. And I'm not even taking into account the Touch Bar.
- crispinb 8y ago
  It's not really unfriendly for developers though, who I would expect make up a decent proportion of the intended audience, and who surely all have the 'Use F1, F2 keys as standard function keys' set. As for the Touch Bar, yes, that's a problem with the standard keybindings (and is also why I'll probably only be a macOS/Marta user for a few months, as I'll never buy a laptop with a fake keyboard). But settings to the rescue! Cmd-shift-p & 'open default keybindings' reveals that they're all configurable.
  - derefr 8y ago
    > and who surely all have the 'Use F1, F2 keys as standard function keys' set. I develop for several different platforms on macOS, and have never felt the need to enable that setting, because I've never encountered any macOS software that required the Fn keys in this particular non-idiomatic way. Even macOS IDEs stay away, tending to map things to complex key-chords instead.
    - crispinb 8y ago
      IntelliJ.
      - OberstKrueger 8y ago
        It takes quite a bit of tweaking to get JetBrains IDEs to work like other macOS applications. Even AppCode has some issues there.
        crispinb 8y ago
        I guess it's a matter of taste whether you converge your familiar environment around the OS or your primary tools. I tend to do the latter (keeping IntelliJ, emacs, Chrome & shell use more-or-less consistent across platforms). I have more faith in my ongoing relationship with those tools than with a particular OS.
dymk 8y ago
I would love vim keybindings for this. It's much more intuitive than Finder.app's keybindings, but I hate leaving my home row.
- yanex 8y ago
  The default bindings are just a de facto standard for double-pane file managers. But all key bindings are configurable, and you can set them to whatever you want in the configuration file. Check the documentation [1] for more information. [1] https://marta.yanex.org/docs#key-bindings https://marta.yanex.org/docs#key-bindings
spython 8y ago
Forklift[0] Does a very good job of being a stable and reliable double pane file manager with connectivity such as SFTP, S3, GoogleDrive and nice built in things like batch rename and file transfer queues. [0] https://binarynights.com/ https://binarynights.com/
- usaphp 8y ago
  I've used ForkLift for a while but then I got a notification that Transmit [1] was updated to version 5 and it's been great so far for me. I like the UI more. [1] - https://panic.com/transmit/ https://panic.com/transmit/
- smaili 8y ago
  Didn't see any mention of SCP -- do you happen to know if that is or is planned to be supported?
  - yanex 8y ago
    Please file an issue :) https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues
    - smaili 8y ago
      My question was regarding the ForkLift app but happy to file one for Marta!
wintercanoe 8y ago
Pathfinder is a great file manager for Mac: https://cocoatech.com/ https://cocoatech.com/
Numberwang 8y ago
The queue thing is something I've always wanted for Windows. Probably for the last 15 years I've wondered why they have't added this and made it a default.
- musage 8y ago
  https://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus11/index.html#!Documents/Copy_Queues.htm https://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus11/index.html#!Documents/...
- WalterGR 8y ago
  What? Windows 8 introduced this - and it's better than what's shown in the Marta screenshot. https://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/itw/2012/02/09/winlin-01-290-100517043-orig.png https://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/itw...
  - Numberwang 8y ago
    Your screenshot shows exactly what’s wrong. I want a queue.
    - mtone 8y ago
      Teracopy has this feature. It's not a file manager, just replaces copy/move operations.
- MikusR 8y ago
  Total Commander has had a queue for about 17 years.
- hs86 8y ago
  SpeedCommander has this feature: https://www.speedproject.com/ https://www.speedproject.com/
yalestar 8y ago
This is really excellent. I used to use Altap Salamander when I was more of a Windows user, and it became one of my most indispensable tools. I've tried most of the Mac commander-style clones (Forklift, Pathfinder, fman, Nimble Commander) and found them slightly off for various reasons. This one really hits the mark for me in terms of functionality, usability/feel, performance, and predictability. And the Sublime-style command palette makes it even better. Excellent job!
- bitL 8y ago
  Try Double Commander.
saagarjha 8y ago
So, I see a plugin API for this, as well as a sample Swift plugin: https://github.com/marta-file-manager/HelloWorldPlugin https://github.com/marta-file-manager/HelloWorldPlugin. How are you making this work? As far as I know, creating plugins in Swift is a bad idea because trying to load two of them with incompatible runtimes (a likely possibility, since Swift doesn't have a stable ABI) would cause bad things to happen.
- yanex 8y ago
  Well, until Swift introduces ABI compatibility, this is definitely a problem, as both Marta API and a plugin need to be built with the same version of Swift. Depending on the Swift release roadmap, I'll postpone 1.0 until the release of Swift 5, or make the API ObjC-compatible. I also have plans for making a "lightweight API" (possibly in Lua). It will support only the subset of features available in the "full API", but if that would be sufficient, nothing prevents it from becoming the "right" way of writing plugins for Marta. (In any case, Swift API won't disappear).
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    > both Marta API and a plugin need to be built with the same version of Swift As far as I’m aware, this isn’t a problem, since your communicating between the two using the Objective-C runtime, which is resilient to the underlying ABI because it essentially overlays its own. The issue arises when you have two plugins with incompatible versions of Swift: in this case, each will load its own standard library, which will lead to conflicts since for any given function in the shared library one of the implementations has to “win out”. This will cause at least one of the plugins to be unable to interface with the standard library correctly.
nodesocket 8y ago
Marta looks super nice, but I very hesitant to replace native Finder. I wish Apple would do a complete rewrite of Finder and update it, instead of bolting on these iOS type changes and new applications.
- yanex 8y ago
  You can use both :) Some of my friends use Finder for simple things like opening the downloaded file, and Marta for advanced file operations.
userbinator 8y ago
Perhaps this is a bit off-topic, but I correctly guessed from the domain name and later, the contents of the page, that [1] the author is Russian, and [2] the file manager resembles the layout of FAR, another file manager of Russian origin and seemingly very popular among them. In short, what is it with Russians and this type of file manager? It's a very curious association.
- gukov 8y ago
  Norton Commander as well. Russians favour brutal simplicity.
- rjzzleep 8y ago
  FAR is fascinating. It may look like a Norton Commander, but it's fully integrated in Windows and the extension system goes beyond most Norton Commander clones. It may be a small thing since the API in windows is fairly simple, but what got me is the fact that you double click an item and you get a copy of windows explorers right click + FAR extensions. But yes, I agree I've asked myself the same question.
  - pashky 8y ago
    Would you imagine that instead of browsing records in a shop or even listening to radio all you and your friends have is the same mixtape copied over and over again? Sounds weird, but that's how software distributed from 80s well into mid-00s in Russia. You didn't get particular products, you got a disk with "all the good bits" according to someone. Somehow Norton Commander ended up in the list at some point, so it instantly became a default and nobody knew anything better. Every DOS computer in 90s Russia booted right into NC, or its Russian clone VC.
    - rjzzleep 8y ago
      I don't know, is it? That's kinda how stuff was distributed in Germany back in the days. At least I think, I don't quite remember in detail what was on those disks. Although I don't remember any computer booting straight into nc Was it that much different in the US?
yogthos 8y ago
On a related note, I highly recommend Midnight Commander midnight-commander.org
tuananh 8y ago
this is so nice. love the app already! - feature wise, it's not as good as forklift yet but the performance, ui (personal preference) are much better.
grzm 8y ago
Over a 100 comments from the Show HN a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921364
- abcd_f 8y ago
  That post is from "Mar 21, 2017", i.e. last year :)
  - grzm 8y ago
    Oh, my :) Thanks!
grzm 8y ago
Looks interesting. I'd love to see more screen shots. Is there a gallery somewhere? I poked around the site a bit but didn't find one. Tthough perhaps I just missed it. Been known to happen.)
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  I agree, more screenshots would be great to get an understanding of the product before trying it. Though I really like the design of the website (and the current screenshot), it gives me a good feeling about the software.
- yanex 8y ago
  Thanks for the advice! I'll make a gallery that will show more features of Marta.
declanqian 8y ago
Just downloaded the beta. Saturday morning. The time I opened the app. I realized I have Emacs dired. I don't need this... Sorry. The UI does look good.
kingmanaz 8y ago
"Worker" should be preferred by fans of AmigaOS 3.1's DOPUS 4.
mherrmann 8y ago
Marta was inspired by (my) https://fman.io https://fman.io [1]. Marta's author criticises that fman doesn't feel native enough because it is also available for Windows and Linux. (It's based on PyQt.) What you get in return however are a more vibrant community and plugin ecosystem in Python. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921631
- Ice_cream_suit 8y ago
  Your fman was the package that surreptitiously ran update daily as root. I cannot imagine that any security conscious Linux user would willingly use it * This was a consequence of it's Windows heritage.
  - mherrmann 8y ago
    This was fixed one year ago, within two days of being reported. I was new to Linux at the time and didn't know better [1]. [1]: https://fman.io/blog/an-apology-to-linux-users/ https://fman.io/blog/an-apology-to-linux-users/
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  Also from Marta's author in that thread: "The development of Marta started the long before I knew about fman, so it's not any kind of imitation." "I don't think we are the direct competitors. fman is a completely another project with its own strong and weak points. I tried fman and didn't like it because of numerous reasons, but it's my own opinion." Two column file manager interfaces have been around for a long time, fman certainly didn't invent it. Marta seems to draw more influence from Midnight Commander / Norton Commander, with the function key reminders at the bottom of the window. The breadcrumbs and tabs in Marta remind me more of Panic's Transmit, and those UI elements aren't in fman. There's elements of the standard Mac finder in there. It is definitely not a clone of fman. I think that was a really unfair comment, designed to get traffic to a competing product.
  - mherrmann 8y ago
hambos22 8y ago
I just tried it and I really liked it. It looks very promising. I applause author's statements about its business model ("The goal for me is to create the best file manager for Mac, not to become rich."). I have tried everything, from Double Commander, to Forklift,Pathfinder and fman. I was fman user for about a year (OSX) but it was slow and the quick look (with plugins) was unresponsive and crashed all the time so I cancelled my subscription about one month ago and I was in search for a minimal but powerful dual panel file manager with keyboard functionality. Thanks for making this, it looks like TotalFinder (which I am a user since the beginning) for power users. Especially the tabs functionality
- mherrmann 8y ago
  Sorry you didn't have a great experience. I'm working on fman 1.0 with literally 10x better performance.
binaryanomaly 8y ago
Nice! I like it and see potential. Was quite disappointed of all the OSX file managers so far and I think I've tried them all. After staying for a bit with pathfinder I'm back to finder. While not super decent it still doesn't get into my way too often. Something more advanced would be welcome though and I would even be willing to pay for it, given it suits my needs. That means though I rather wait for v1.0 because I miss quit a lot of features / ui usability in the current state. Make it the Sublimetext of file managers and you have a customer.
jaclaz 8y ago
>Marta is a dual-pane file manager. Most of the time you work with two directory panes placed side-by-side. This allows you to do the basic file operations such as copying or moving files in a fast and efficient way, because you can see both source and target directories, and you can copy or move files directly, without copy-pasting it. Just in case, it could be categorized as a OFM (Orthodox File Manager): http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml What started it all is the Norton Commander for DOS.
- mherrmann 8y ago
  If you're interested in a little history: https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/ https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/
  - jaclaz 8y ago
    >If you're interested in a little history: https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/ https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/ Thank you, though I knew most of those info as - unfortunately - I was there, in the sense that I was in my twenties when NC came out, I practically started my computing experience at work using NC and I couldn't imagine doing some tasks without a dual pane filemanager, and when the NC was killed by Symantec I mourned the loss (and quickly found some decent alternatives, the one with the most "NC feeling" being IMHO DN - Dos Navigator and later NDN - Necoromancer's Dos Navigator). As a side note, what not everyone knows/noticed, 7-zip it is also a (almost orthodox) dual pane file manager, very handy to manage, besides files residing on mounted filesystems also those inside archives (obviously) and those inside disk/disc/drive images, such as .iso, .img and similar.
- dctoedt 8y ago
  > What started it all is the Norton Commander for DOS. I think even it was preceded by the (wonderful) PFM file manager, which has a modern-day descendant in the Linux world. http://p-f-m.sourceforge.net/ http://p-f-m.sourceforge.net/ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.archives.msdos.d/hLNAGTAXCqY https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.archives.msdos....
zhtway 8y ago
I haven’t fully tested yet. But I like double pane FM. Thanks for your app. Why you still leave copyright year to 2016 to 2017? Shouldn’t be 2018?
- yanex 8y ago
  Forgot to update it, my shame! :) Will be updated in 0.5.1.
dvcrn 8y ago
I would like to try to use this as default manager for things like `open .` and `reveal in finder` actions. `defaults write -g NSFileViewer -string org.yanex.marta` did a pretty good job with some things but others still don't work. Is there any way to set it as default?

217 points by yanex 8y ago

The file manager seems to be closed-source[1], does anyone know of any good open-source alternatives ? [1] https://github.com/marta-file-manager/ https://github.com/marta-file-manager/

darek 8y ago
I've been using Nimble Commander for a while now. Snappy, similar to Total Commander on Windows and I love it. The developer recently made it open source and published the code on GitHub here: https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander https://github.com/mikekazakov/nimble-commander I'm not sure if that's the kind of open source you were looking for, but may be worth checking out.
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  Wow. When I used macOS, I used this manager a lot and it's awesome. Now Open Source, it's even more awesome.
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    I didn’t know it was made open source either. Great news.
- pbalau 8y ago
  Total Commander is the best piece of software I ever used! I even bought a license for it, they sent me a cd with an installer and the license and I promptly lost it. At some point i even had tc as a replacement for the Windows shell. These days i dont care that much about where my files are, I have a "work" folder and thats that. My music is on spotify, my videos on netflix/amazon prime/now tv, i dont take that many meaningful pictures anymore and I dont see a reason to care about files anymore. But Total Commander was my life for a very long time, along with piracy :-P
josteink 8y ago
While I think downvoting this comment is unfair, it should be noted that if you care about your OS and tools being open-source, you probably shouldn’t be running OSX in the first place. I might even suggest running Linux. Oh my :)
- ovao 8y ago
  Limiting the number of entities you need to trust with closed-source software is perfectly sound wisdom, but that number doesn’t need to be zero to be useful. That’s not to say Marta’s author has any ill intent, because I doubt he or she does.
- mrgordon 8y ago
  This all or nothing mentality doesn't often end up being useful in practice. For example, try doing some deep learning on Linux with CUDA without installing closed source NVIDIA drivers. The important detail is who provided the software and in this case most people are going to trust Apple or NVIDIA significantly more than a small third-party software developer they've never heard of. (FWIW many of us tried running Linux as a desktop OS but found the UI and driver situation to be abysmal so it continues to just power our servers)
  - ReverseCold 8y ago
    Linux is actually good now for desktop use. I install it (= Fedora or Antergos w/ GNOME) on everything now and it just works(tm). Not a single thing has been broken across two modern PCs and a laptop.
    - azinman2 8y ago
      Question is “good for what?” It simply doesn’t have the polish, or flexibility that I’d need to effectively stay on it for long. I always end up spending longggg times customizing things only to feel little integration, little support, and a lack of decent third party software. Sketch is Mac only. Spotify barely has a Linux client. Certainly no photoshop, medocire native email clients, zero IM that integrate with any networks I use (sms/iMessage), etc etc. Yes there’s lots of options as a webpage, but that’s a shallow substitute. If you happen to need only the stuff that’s available, and your workflow is largely CLI-driven, then it’s probably fine. Otherwise it’s macOS for me.
Digital-Citizen 8y ago
If that's the case (and I take it the absence of a source code repository is how you're reaching your conclusion), that's ironic. The Marta webpage linked to this story includes "Because I want to own what I pay money for." yet one never truly owns proprietary software regardless of price; one can never really tell what it is doing, and users are prohibited from inspecting the program to find out, as well as sharing copies (modified for sure, often verbatim copies too).
- yanex 8y ago
  Marta author here. I agree with you that the open source software has higher level of trust than the proprietary one, but I afraid I just can't maintain Marta steadily for a long time if it was open-sourced (and then forever free). And I doubt the community will do that instead of me. In case if you're interested, I expressed my thoughts about this here [1] earlier. I do promise, though, that Marta will never collect personal data, display ads or do some other bad things. I just don't see any sense in that, and I'd rather have a good reputation. [1] https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues/194 https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues/19...
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Is there a reason to not license it under a dual license? Have the source code open with a non commercial license and also distribute the binaries under a commercial license. I’m not sure that it will have a significant impact on the revenue since most people would likely opt out and purchase the binary rather than building it on their own.
    - yanex 8y ago
      According to what I know, in case of desktop applications, the revenue drops almost to zero, unless you have a Free and Pro versions. "Free edition" then lacks almost all features that make the product competitive, and it's not really good. It's reasonable, though, if your potential user base is totally different. For example, IntelliJ IDEA has a Community edition that lacks enterprise frameworks support, but that's not a problem for "single users" because they basically don't do any enterprise. But it looks like it won't work for Marta. So I'd rather choose the Sublime Text strategy (though I think that Sublime costs too much).
BozeWolf 8y ago
I still use midnight commander every now and then. It is terminal based though. It is open source, feature packed and works cross platform.
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  I also use mc everyday, because it gives huge performance boost when working in shell, but it's time for face lift.

saagarjha 8y ago

What does this app provide that Finder doesn't? I see something about a background operation queue, which Finder does, archive support, which I have a QuickLook plugin for, and gadgets, which I can accomplish with services.

dymk 8y ago
Fully keyboard accessible, which at best Finder.app does badly. IDE-esque "any command" search for operations instead of going through a menu bar.
- crispinb 8y ago
  Those would have been my top two picks also. I'd add: embedded terminal, and plugins. Services are no alternative - try using one, for example, to show/hide hidden files. You'll have time to make a coffee while it's operating.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > IDE-esque "any command" search for operations instead of going through a menu bar. Command+Shift+/, then type your command?
mephitix 8y ago
If you've ever used Total Commander or even Windows 7+ native file explorer it's very hard to go back to or use Finder. Keyboard shortcuts, tokenizing/detokenizing file paths, opening in terminal, searching within files, search for duplicate files, bulk rename, plugins, and more. Whenever I have a new Mac I spend a couple minutes customizing Finder: adding things like the Path button, showing the Path bar, showing the Status bar, etc. I get that it's supposed to be simple but it's surprising to me that such basic things aren't in the starting configuration. I do love the spacebar preview though :)
- eridius 8y ago
  What does "tokenizing/detokenizing file paths" mean? "Open in terminal" is actually a built-in Service. It's not enabled by default, but you can go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services and enable it, and even give it a hotkey. Finder also has done bulk rename for a few years now.

crispinb 8y ago

On a first look, this looks fantastic. Just what I've been waiting for. Time will tell -- I have thought this about a couple of other file managers, but irritations have always eventually surfaced to drive me back to Finder. The ST-style command palette alone makes this worth a decent evaluation. First-run experience was a bit odd - Marta opened up with both panes empty, and all actions unavailable. I had to go to Go->Volumes in each pane and select a volume to show up. That's OK, it's a beta. Seems great so far.

yeasayer 8y ago

I don't like that file operations are controlled by F1-F8 keys. This UX is unfriendly to macOS environment. Most users' F-row is in media keys mode by default, so you have to hold Fn otherwise. And I'm not even taking into account the Touch Bar.

crispinb 8y ago
It's not really unfriendly for developers though, who I would expect make up a decent proportion of the intended audience, and who surely all have the 'Use F1, F2 keys as standard function keys' set. As for the Touch Bar, yes, that's a problem with the standard keybindings (and is also why I'll probably only be a macOS/Marta user for a few months, as I'll never buy a laptop with a fake keyboard). But settings to the rescue! Cmd-shift-p & 'open default keybindings' reveals that they're all configurable.
- derefr 8y ago
  > and who surely all have the 'Use F1, F2 keys as standard function keys' set. I develop for several different platforms on macOS, and have never felt the need to enable that setting, because I've never encountered any macOS software that required the Fn keys in this particular non-idiomatic way. Even macOS IDEs stay away, tending to map things to complex key-chords instead.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    IntelliJ.
    - OberstKrueger 8y ago
      It takes quite a bit of tweaking to get JetBrains IDEs to work like other macOS applications. Even AppCode has some issues there.
      - crispinb 8y ago
        I guess it's a matter of taste whether you converge your familiar environment around the OS or your primary tools. I tend to do the latter (keeping IntelliJ, emacs, Chrome & shell use more-or-less consistent across platforms). I have more faith in my ongoing relationship with those tools than with a particular OS.

dymk 8y ago

I would love vim keybindings for this. It's much more intuitive than Finder.app's keybindings, but I hate leaving my home row.

yanex 8y ago
The default bindings are just a de facto standard for double-pane file managers. But all key bindings are configurable, and you can set them to whatever you want in the configuration file. Check the documentation [1] for more information. [1] https://marta.yanex.org/docs#key-bindings https://marta.yanex.org/docs#key-bindings

spython 8y ago

Forklift[0] Does a very good job of being a stable and reliable double pane file manager with connectivity such as SFTP, S3, GoogleDrive and nice built in things like batch rename and file transfer queues. [0] https://binarynights.com/ https://binarynights.com/

usaphp 8y ago
I've used ForkLift for a while but then I got a notification that Transmit [1] was updated to version 5 and it's been great so far for me. I like the UI more. [1] - https://panic.com/transmit/ https://panic.com/transmit/
smaili 8y ago
Didn't see any mention of SCP -- do you happen to know if that is or is planned to be supported?
- yanex 8y ago
  Please file an issue :) https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues https://github.com/marta-file-manager/marta-issues/issues
  - smaili 8y ago
    My question was regarding the ForkLift app but happy to file one for Marta!

wintercanoe 8y ago

Pathfinder is a great file manager for Mac: https://cocoatech.com/ https://cocoatech.com/

Numberwang 8y ago

The queue thing is something I've always wanted for Windows. Probably for the last 15 years I've wondered why they have't added this and made it a default.

musage 8y ago
https://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus11/index.html#!Documents/Copy_Queues.htm https://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus11/index.html#!Documents/...
WalterGR 8y ago
What? Windows 8 introduced this - and it's better than what's shown in the Marta screenshot. https://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/itw/2012/02/09/winlin-01-290-100517043-orig.png https://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/itw...
- Numberwang 8y ago
  Your screenshot shows exactly what’s wrong. I want a queue.
  - mtone 8y ago
    Teracopy has this feature. It's not a file manager, just replaces copy/move operations.
MikusR 8y ago
Total Commander has had a queue for about 17 years.
hs86 8y ago
SpeedCommander has this feature: https://www.speedproject.com/ https://www.speedproject.com/

yalestar 8y ago

This is really excellent. I used to use Altap Salamander when I was more of a Windows user, and it became one of my most indispensable tools. I've tried most of the Mac commander-style clones (Forklift, Pathfinder, fman, Nimble Commander) and found them slightly off for various reasons. This one really hits the mark for me in terms of functionality, usability/feel, performance, and predictability. And the Sublime-style command palette makes it even better. Excellent job!

bitL 8y ago
Try Double Commander.

saagarjha 8y ago

So, I see a plugin API for this, as well as a sample Swift plugin: https://github.com/marta-file-manager/HelloWorldPlugin https://github.com/marta-file-manager/HelloWorldPlugin. How are you making this work? As far as I know, creating plugins in Swift is a bad idea because trying to load two of them with incompatible runtimes (a likely possibility, since Swift doesn't have a stable ABI) would cause bad things to happen.

yanex 8y ago
Well, until Swift introduces ABI compatibility, this is definitely a problem, as both Marta API and a plugin need to be built with the same version of Swift. Depending on the Swift release roadmap, I'll postpone 1.0 until the release of Swift 5, or make the API ObjC-compatible. I also have plans for making a "lightweight API" (possibly in Lua). It will support only the subset of features available in the "full API", but if that would be sufficient, nothing prevents it from becoming the "right" way of writing plugins for Marta. (In any case, Swift API won't disappear).
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > both Marta API and a plugin need to be built with the same version of Swift As far as I’m aware, this isn’t a problem, since your communicating between the two using the Objective-C runtime, which is resilient to the underlying ABI because it essentially overlays its own. The issue arises when you have two plugins with incompatible versions of Swift: in this case, each will load its own standard library, which will lead to conflicts since for any given function in the shared library one of the implementations has to “win out”. This will cause at least one of the plugins to be unable to interface with the standard library correctly.

nodesocket 8y ago

Marta looks super nice, but I very hesitant to replace native Finder. I wish Apple would do a complete rewrite of Finder and update it, instead of bolting on these iOS type changes and new applications.

yanex 8y ago
You can use both :) Some of my friends use Finder for simple things like opening the downloaded file, and Marta for advanced file operations.

userbinator 8y ago

Perhaps this is a bit off-topic, but I correctly guessed from the domain name and later, the contents of the page, that [1] the author is Russian, and [2] the file manager resembles the layout of FAR, another file manager of Russian origin and seemingly very popular among them. In short, what is it with Russians and this type of file manager? It's a very curious association.

gukov 8y ago
Norton Commander as well. Russians favour brutal simplicity.
rjzzleep 8y ago
FAR is fascinating. It may look like a Norton Commander, but it's fully integrated in Windows and the extension system goes beyond most Norton Commander clones. It may be a small thing since the API in windows is fairly simple, but what got me is the fact that you double click an item and you get a copy of windows explorers right click + FAR extensions. But yes, I agree I've asked myself the same question.
- pashky 8y ago
  Would you imagine that instead of browsing records in a shop or even listening to radio all you and your friends have is the same mixtape copied over and over again? Sounds weird, but that's how software distributed from 80s well into mid-00s in Russia. You didn't get particular products, you got a disk with "all the good bits" according to someone. Somehow Norton Commander ended up in the list at some point, so it instantly became a default and nobody knew anything better. Every DOS computer in 90s Russia booted right into NC, or its Russian clone VC.
  - rjzzleep 8y ago
    I don't know, is it? That's kinda how stuff was distributed in Germany back in the days. At least I think, I don't quite remember in detail what was on those disks. Although I don't remember any computer booting straight into nc Was it that much different in the US?

yogthos 8y ago

On a related note, I highly recommend Midnight Commander midnight-commander.org

tuananh 8y ago

this is so nice. love the app already! - feature wise, it's not as good as forklift yet but the performance, ui (personal preference) are much better.

grzm 8y ago

Over a 100 comments from the Show HN a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921364

abcd_f 8y ago
That post is from "Mar 21, 2017", i.e. last year :)
- grzm 8y ago
  Oh, my :) Thanks!

grzm 8y ago

Looks interesting. I'd love to see more screen shots. Is there a gallery somewhere? I poked around the site a bit but didn't find one. Tthough perhaps I just missed it. Been known to happen.)

SyneRyder 8y ago
I agree, more screenshots would be great to get an understanding of the product before trying it. Though I really like the design of the website (and the current screenshot), it gives me a good feeling about the software.
yanex 8y ago
Thanks for the advice! I'll make a gallery that will show more features of Marta.

declanqian 8y ago

Just downloaded the beta. Saturday morning. The time I opened the app. I realized I have Emacs dired. I don't need this... Sorry. The UI does look good.

kingmanaz 8y ago

"Worker" should be preferred by fans of AmigaOS 3.1's DOPUS 4.

mherrmann 8y ago

Marta was inspired by (my) https://fman.io https://fman.io [1]. Marta's author criticises that fman doesn't feel native enough because it is also available for Windows and Linux. (It's based on PyQt.) What you get in return however are a more vibrant community and plugin ecosystem in Python. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921631

Ice_cream_suit 8y ago
Your fman was the package that surreptitiously ran update daily as root. I cannot imagine that any security conscious Linux user would willingly use it * This was a consequence of it's Windows heritage.
- mherrmann 8y ago
  This was fixed one year ago, within two days of being reported. I was new to Linux at the time and didn't know better [1]. [1]: https://fman.io/blog/an-apology-to-linux-users/ https://fman.io/blog/an-apology-to-linux-users/
SyneRyder 8y ago
Also from Marta's author in that thread: "The development of Marta started the long before I knew about fman, so it's not any kind of imitation." "I don't think we are the direct competitors. fman is a completely another project with its own strong and weak points. I tried fman and didn't like it because of numerous reasons, but it's my own opinion." Two column file manager interfaces have been around for a long time, fman certainly didn't invent it. Marta seems to draw more influence from Midnight Commander / Norton Commander, with the function key reminders at the bottom of the window. The breadcrumbs and tabs in Marta remind me more of Panic's Transmit, and those UI elements aren't in fman. There's elements of the standard Mac finder in there. It is definitely not a clone of fman. I think that was a really unfair comment, designed to get traffic to a competing product.
- mherrmann 8y ago

hambos22 8y ago

I just tried it and I really liked it. It looks very promising. I applause author's statements about its business model ("The goal for me is to create the best file manager for Mac, not to become rich."). I have tried everything, from Double Commander, to Forklift,Pathfinder and fman. I was fman user for about a year (OSX) but it was slow and the quick look (with plugins) was unresponsive and crashed all the time so I cancelled my subscription about one month ago and I was in search for a minimal but powerful dual panel file manager with keyboard functionality. Thanks for making this, it looks like TotalFinder (which I am a user since the beginning) for power users. Especially the tabs functionality

mherrmann 8y ago
Sorry you didn't have a great experience. I'm working on fman 1.0 with literally 10x better performance.

binaryanomaly 8y ago

Nice! I like it and see potential. Was quite disappointed of all the OSX file managers so far and I think I've tried them all. After staying for a bit with pathfinder I'm back to finder. While not super decent it still doesn't get into my way too often. Something more advanced would be welcome though and I would even be willing to pay for it, given it suits my needs. That means though I rather wait for v1.0 because I miss quit a lot of features / ui usability in the current state. Make it the Sublimetext of file managers and you have a customer.

jaclaz 8y ago

>Marta is a dual-pane file manager. Most of the time you work with two directory panes placed side-by-side. This allows you to do the basic file operations such as copying or moving files in a fast and efficient way, because you can see both source and target directories, and you can copy or move files directly, without copy-pasting it. Just in case, it could be categorized as a OFM (Orthodox File Manager): http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml What started it all is the Norton Commander for DOS.

mherrmann 8y ago
If you're interested in a little history: https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/ https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/
- jaclaz 8y ago
  >If you're interested in a little history: https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/ https://fman.io/blog/dual-pane-file-manager-history/ Thank you, though I knew most of those info as - unfortunately - I was there, in the sense that I was in my twenties when NC came out, I practically started my computing experience at work using NC and I couldn't imagine doing some tasks without a dual pane filemanager, and when the NC was killed by Symantec I mourned the loss (and quickly found some decent alternatives, the one with the most "NC feeling" being IMHO DN - Dos Navigator and later NDN - Necoromancer's Dos Navigator). As a side note, what not everyone knows/noticed, 7-zip it is also a (almost orthodox) dual pane file manager, very handy to manage, besides files residing on mounted filesystems also those inside archives (obviously) and those inside disk/disc/drive images, such as .iso, .img and similar.
dctoedt 8y ago
> What started it all is the Norton Commander for DOS. I think even it was preceded by the (wonderful) PFM file manager, which has a modern-day descendant in the Linux world. http://p-f-m.sourceforge.net/ http://p-f-m.sourceforge.net/ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.archives.msdos.d/hLNAGTAXCqY https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.archives.msdos....

zhtway 8y ago

I haven’t fully tested yet. But I like double pane FM. Thanks for your app. Why you still leave copyright year to 2016 to 2017? Shouldn’t be 2018?

yanex 8y ago
Forgot to update it, my shame! :) Will be updated in 0.5.1.

dvcrn 8y ago

I would like to try to use this as default manager for things like `open .` and `reveal in finder` actions. `defaults write -g NSFileViewer -string org.yanex.marta` did a pretty good job with some things but others still don't work. Is there any way to set it as default?