Written in C++ Available in English, Russian | Operating system | |
 | ||
Developer(s) Eugene Roshal (1996–2000)
Far Group (2000–present) Initial release 10 September 1996; 20 years ago (1996-09-10) Repository sourceforge.net/p/farmanager/code/HEAD/tree/ | ||
Far Manager (short for File and ARchive Manager) is an orthodox file manager for Microsoft Windows and a clone of Norton Commander. Far Manager uses the Win32 console and has a keyboard-oriented user interface (although limited mouse operation, including drag-and-drop, is possible).
Contents
Far Manager was created by Eugene Roshal, and has been under development by the Far Group since 2000. The project's Unicode branches (2.0 and 3.0) are open-source (under the revised BSD license). All branches are available as 32- and 64-bit builds. Far Manager is often viewed as a very customizable file manager and text editor, and a free alternative to Total Commander.
Features
Far Manager features an internal viewer and editor, customizable user menus, tree views, file search, compare, integrated help, and a task switcher for its tools. Its standard functionality can be expanded with macros (which allow scripting) and plugins.
Far Manager's default interface combines two file panels with a command prompt. Panels may be fully customized as to which columns are shown and in which order, and operations may be done to and from either panel. The file panels support wildcard selection, advanced filtering, sorting and highlighting. The file panels and the command prompt are both active at the same time (they are interacted with using different keys), and most features can be accessed using keyboard shortcuts (the key bar at the bottom displays the function key actions for the currently held down modifier keys).
Extensibility
Far's standard functionality can be greatly extended with macros (written in Lua scripting language, primarily used to record keypress sequences) and plugins. Standard plugins installed by default include FTP, Windows network, extensible archive file support and temporary panel (sandbox) virtual file systems, a process list, print manager, filename case converter, and several editor plugins to format, wrap, and otherwise alter text.
Third-party plugins are available from the PlugRing repository and plugin announcement forum (in Russian). Some popular plugins include regular expression search and replace (both in the text editor and across multiple files), syntax highlighting and auto-completion for the text editor, SFTP/SCP and Windows Registry virtual file systems, 7-zip integration, a hex editor and a picture viewer (which overlays a DirectX surface over Far's console window). Wrappers are available which allow using some Total Commander plugins with Far Manager, and vice versa. Plugins can be developed using the native C/Pascal API, or using wrappers which permit plugin development in other platforms and languages, such as .NET (including PowerShell), and Lua.
Linux and MacOS version
far2l project develops linux and macos far manager port. As for now, port successfully builds and most common functions work as expected. Ported and working plugins are farftp, colorer, multiarc, tmppanel.
Licensing
Far Manager is available under the revised BSD license.
Originally, Far Manager was available as 40 days shareware for everyone except for citizens of the former USSR countries, who could use it as freeware for non-commercial use only. On 26 October 2007, the source code for the Unicode development version (1.80, later renamed to 2.0) was released under the revised BSD license. On 17 May 2010 the 1.x branch has also been released under the revised BSD license, albeit without source code.