I fail to understand how two-panel file managers didn’t become the default. It seems that in the 90s Norton Commander and it’s derivatives were widely used on DOS PCs. They made many file management tasks so much easier. Why don’t we see them around nowadays?
I know that FAR and probably Midnight Commander are still around, but I just don’t see anybody using them.
My best guess is mouse oriented UI and desktop environments targeted at non expert users.
Two-panel file managers solve certain interaction problems in a keyboard driven and terminal based environments. Those aren't as much of a problem in a modern desktop environment where you can open multiple file explorer windows and copy-paste or drag and drop files between windows of your choice. The way graphical desktop environments work there is less ambiguity for selecting source/destination in case of more than 2 windows. Clipboard an drag and drop interfaces allow dragging files even into other other non file explorer programs. For example you can drag a file from file explorer into a video editing or image editing software the same way you would drag it between two file explorer windows.
Clipboard and drag and drop APIs is usually outside the scope of most terminal programs. Working with multiple programs at the same time efficiently requires additional software like screen or tmux. And the means for exchanging information between programs is limited (beside going through file system or chaining list of programs with pipes, but that's a different usage paradigm). Two panel file manger solves both of these issues by drawing two contexts and providing interactions between them in single program.
Two-panel file manager can provide a very effective tool for experts, even in a GUI based systems due to having an interface that's designed with keyboard and efficiency in mind. Which is why I think they are still popular in certain niche. But for a non expert users keyboard driven interfaces can be opaque and hard to discover. Mouse based graphical interfaces are much friendlier for new users and make it easier to discover functionality, even if they are less efficient and require more clicks/key presses for experts.
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I fail to understand how two-panel file managers didn’t become the default. It seems that in the 90s Norton Commander and it’s derivatives were widely used on DOS PCs. They made many file management tasks so much easier. Why don’t we see them around nowadays?
I know that FAR and probably Midnight Commander are still around, but I just don’t see anybody using them.
My best guess is mouse oriented UI and desktop environments targeted at non expert users.
Two-panel file managers solve certain interaction problems in a keyboard driven and terminal based environments. Those aren't as much of a problem in a modern desktop environment where you can open multiple file explorer windows and copy-paste or drag and drop files between windows of your choice. The way graphical desktop environments work there is less ambiguity for selecting source/destination in case of more than 2 windows. Clipboard an drag and drop interfaces allow dragging files even into other other non file explorer programs. For example you can drag a file from file explorer into a video editing or image editing software the same way you would drag it between two file explorer windows.
Clipboard and drag and drop APIs is usually outside the scope of most terminal programs. Working with multiple programs at the same time efficiently requires additional software like screen or tmux. And the means for exchanging information between programs is limited (beside going through file system or chaining list of programs with pipes, but that's a different usage paradigm). Two panel file manger solves both of these issues by drawing two contexts and providing interactions between them in single program.
Two-panel file manager can provide a very effective tool for experts, even in a GUI based systems due to having an interface that's designed with keyboard and efficiency in mind. Which is why I think they are still popular in certain niche. But for a non expert users keyboard driven interfaces can be opaque and hard to discover. Mouse based graphical interfaces are much friendlier for new users and make it easier to discover functionality, even if they are less efficient and require more clicks/key presses for experts.