Softpanorama Bulletin
Vol 24, No.06 (June, 2012)

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FAR -- the first OFM that successfully implemented a plug-in concept

• Introduction
• Compatibility with OFM1999 standard and shortcomings
  • Interface look & feel
  • Navigational and basic hot keys compatibility
  • Shell Window compatibility
  • Compatibility of F1..F12 and other F-keys operations
  • Tree View Panel compatibility
  • Directory search panel (NCD panel or Quick CD panel)
  • Selection/Deselection
  • Quick view compatibility
  • Macro compatibility
  • FindFile compatibility
  • Command line execution compatibility
  • Sorting and filtering file and directories in panel
  • User Menu
  • Additional file commands compatibility
  • Association management compatibility (extensions menu)
  • Compare directories
  • Built-in viewer
  • Built-in Editor
  • Archive virtual file system 
  • History and favorites compatibility

• Advanced features implemented

• Timeline

• Problem areas

• Suggestions

• Webliography

Introduction

The initial versions of FAR were written by a very talented programmer Eugene Roshal in 1997. He stands among Vsevolod Volkov and creators of DN as troika, who defined modern OFMs.  Far was definitely influenced by VC, DN, FC and MC. At the same time is it a very clean and well thought implementation with its own "face" and the best compatibility with OFM1999 standard. It has an excellent  implementation of FTP VFS and, especially, archive VFS ( Eugene Roshal is also the author of RAR -- one of the best compression programs on the market). Most of the code existed in earlier versions of RAR archiver. From the very beginning it was clear that we have a new leader in classic OFMs for Windows. Despite huge success of Windows 95 at the time, FAR was the one of the few OFM based on Win32 API (Norton Commander for Windows and Total Commander  which was called Windows commander at the time were other well known implementations based on Win32 API).  The current review is based on version 3.0 of FAR. This version utilizes LUA as a macro language that puts FAR above the competition among all OFM managers. Essentially FAR team crossed the finish line of integrating LUA before MC team, despite the fact that MC team has chances to integrate S-lang probably for decade or more. 

Most of FAR features were already available in version 1.5 that was released in late 1997. Please note that at this time Norton Commander still existed as a commercial product: version 5.0 was released in 1993 and version 5.5 in 1998, one year after FAR. Norton Commander for Windows, the GUI version of Norton Commander already existed (it was released in 1996 and that's the version the FAR left in the dust.)

There are three main versions of FAR that actually co-exist in FAR user community:

• Version 1.75 which is an improvement of the original version created by Eugene Roshal. This version is still widely used but is showing its age. For example it writes user menu to registry (and that means that if your PC crashed and you restored earlier image and recovered all file, registry entries are gone and need to be recreated manually). Initially 1.x versions of FAR were a shareware implementation with $25 registration fee. Since 2011 it is open source under FreeBSD license. It was actively developed approximately until 2000 (v. 1.65, the last shareware version of FAR was released 26-Jun-2000), but at this point the author probably decided that this distracts him from the RAR -- his main project and moved development to the selected group of contributors.  Things slowed down considerably after that but development never stopped.  Like in case of many other OFMs, it's difficult to survive when the principal developer left, but FAR managed to make it.   In any case version 1.7 was produced and even first beta version were very stable.
• Version 2.0 which is essentially the same but supports Unicode (and breaks compatibility of many plugins, written for version 1.75 and earlier). This is kind of "nothing special" version and is not recommended. Use version 3.0 instead.  FAR 2.0 is less stable then 1.75.
• Version 3.0 that has significant improvements including groundbreaking integration of LUA. Among notable changes in version 3.0:

• LUA is used as macrolanguage. Several plugins that utilize LUA already exist.
• Significant changes to the API, to maximize plugins capabilities.
• All settings are now stored in the  SQLite database, so Far 3 became fully portable. Settings can be imported and exported via the xml-files.
• Significantly rewritten built-in viewer: full support for UTF8, new dump mode, and a lot of small changes.
• External rendering, providing additional features (TrueColor, and bold / italic / underline fonts) when working with ConEmu.
• In each of the "Citations to the folder" can now be done on a few links (Commands -> Links to folders).
• In the list of plug-ins, you can view information about the selected plugin (F11, F3).
• A lot of changes in the macro language.
• Backlight files with more than one hard link (hardlink).
• Improved inforpanel (Ctrl-L).
• Improved Quick view (Ctrl-Q).
• The settings are not lost when close the window Far with "x" in the upper right corner (closing window by mouse).
• A large number of bug fixes.

Due to important of version 3.0 I created several additional pages devoted to this version. Among them:

• FAR with LUA -- Version 3.0 of File Manager
• Far Keyboard Macros
• FAR Manager Tips
• FAR Macrovariables
• FAR Keyboard Map

Unfortunatly, version 3.0 was released when the current revision of  ebook was close to completion and I did not have time to analyse as thorously as I wished, so impressions are preliminary.  First and formost it uses It also uses LUA as macro language. This is the second groundbreaking achivement of FAR -- integration of standard scripting language engine into OFM.

It also fixed very annoying FAR idiosyncrasy (or blunder, if you wish) of writing most settings including user menu and extension menu to the registry (which means that if you PC became unbootable, you lose those setting with the OS, unless you separately back them up from the registry).

Generally the build that I used (2942) looks pretty stable to me. But in search files dialog, the bug related to selecting files that were modified within specified data range is not still fixed.  Folder shortcuts (F9-C-O) are generalized to 10 lists bound to RightCtrl-[0-9] as starting points, not just 10 shortcuts like in older versions.

From version 1.65 that I test FAQR added several useful keys shorcuts were added to the standard OFM keymap. For example the key to insert  file name with a full path (Ctrl-F). This is in addition to Ctrl-Enter introduced by Volkov Commander.  From early version macro support was included (with the hotkey Ctrl . switches macro recording on, pressing it again switches it all and invoke the dialog to name the created macro) for both file manager and built-in editor. Far was the first to introduce a plug-in API in OFMs, which for example from early version provided such function as for macro construction and  editing, temp panel, ftp and several other functions.  Gradually users had wrote a huge library of plug-ins. Most of them for version 1.x, but there are already a dozen plug-ins written specifically for FAR 3.0 which take advantage of the new functionality.

Panelize command and temp VFS support (Like in NC5 temp VFS is most useful as a target of the panel command from search) are implemented and can be used (via a uner-defined macro) to provide an XTree VFS implementation (just search *.* everything in the subtree). But it might be better to implement XTree VFS directly binding it to Ctrl-D (may be somebody will write such a plug-in soon).   There is a (non-obvious) way to hide full path in temporary panel in order to use it for finding  duplicate and other purposes where full path is a disadvantage: when you browse Temporary panel, you can change its panel modes as usual: Alt-1, Alt-2 etc., and the first three modes display file names without path.

There is a way to make panels asymmetrical in width (Ctrl-Left or Ctrl-Right) as well as expose large part of shell terminal window (Ctrl-Up, Ctrl-Down). This is a unique and important for advanced users flexibility that few other OFMs have (for example Total Commander does not).

FAR has one of the best history implementation including history of searches, selections, visited folders and viewed/edited files. This was done cleanly and uniformly which is in general a trademark of FAR programming style. Again not only because of feature set, but also the quality of the implementation makes FAR a leader among the Win32 API based classic OFM implementations.

Despite being the leader in classic OFM implementations FAR is a relative newcomer and is one of  the youngest implementations discussed in this book.

The greatest idea implemented in FAR is a concept of  a plug-in -- the concept similar to Netscape.  In this respect FAR is a unique OFM and until recently has no competitors. Only since  2001 or v. 4.5 Total Commander started to support plug-ins too in a fairly compatible way. 

Several hundred plug-ins for FAR already exist (557 the last time I checked).  See an official list  of plug-ins for more information. This is a revolutionary feature that makes FAR a class of its own. As an example of how a simple plug-in can extend the functionality of FAR see, for example, External Filter for Editor Registry Browser by Michael Yutsis. ,  Colorer by Cail Lomecb and Search And Replace by Ivan Sintyurin.

They are all  nice examples of complex plug-ins that substantially enhance the functionality of FAR. Here is an interesting list of recommended plug-ins from My FAR Plugins TOP 10

Built-in editor can work with Windows Clipboard and also supports plug-ins. See, for example, a very elegant "External Filter for Editor"  by Michael Yutsis. Among other popular editor plug-ins I would like to mention Colorer, a plug-in that provides syntax coloring and another plug-in that provides regular expression based search and replace. Although FAR's internal editor is  weaker then in Midnight Commander, it is compensated by a wide range of plug-ins available.

One of useful features of FAR plug-in API is that a plug-in can have a command-line prefix and its own command line after it. It allows many things; for example, XML plug-in allows to go directly into a specified element in the specified URL, and you can do it from a user menu.

If you are a programmer, you can feel how good Eugene is by just exploring the reaction of Far on unusual combinations of keys: you will discover that FAR behave very intelligently even in very complex situations. But FAR is showing its age as it was not greatly changed since version 1.65 -- the last Eugene Roshal has releases before passing the codebase tot he team of maintainers. One major drawback is outdated system of macrovariables.  Another significant drawback is that the user menu is not dynamic like in MC (althouth with LUA integration in version 3.0 this is trivial to implement). Also built-in editor does not have user menu implemented. With open sourced codebase there is a possibility to significantly enhance built-in editor using compatible with FAR licensed codebase.   

I am especially grateful for the improved implementation of plugins and creation of the community of contributors that write them. That's probably the main achievement of FAR.

Compatibility with OFM1999 standard and shortcomings

FAR has the best result in version 3.1 of the OFM1999 compatibility test:

Interface look & feel

Far demonstrates perfect compatibility in this category...

1. FAR provides classic OFM interface with two symmetrical panels and command line at the bottom. Command line is expandable to either full of partial (with height configurable by line) command screen. Symmetrical panels provide user definable fields and ability to switch to one of several predefined templates including horizontal panels. 
2. There is an information line under each panel
3. Both bottom and top menu are present. Top menu provides access to configuration and commands without shortcuts.  Bottom menu changes if you press and hold Ctrl, Alt, Shift to see what operation are provided by F-keys with Alt, Ctrl and Shift prefixes. 
4. There is a capability to position both panels horizontally
5. There is a capability to expand command line to half screen or full screen.
6. There are separate menus for setting in left and right panels.

Navigational and basic hot keys compatibility: 

Far demonstrates perfect compatibility in this category...

1. Enter behavior is compatible, the  result of execution of scripts are visible via Ctrl-O.
2. The Tab key behavior is compatible
3. Ctrl-\ is compatible (goes to the root of logical drive)
4. Ctrl-PgDn and Ctrl-PgUp are compatible (move to the upper (current subdirectory) and lower level directory respectively). The importance of this feature is that it permit exit from several level of directories without changing the command line that might contain partially typed command. This way you can assemble command line while traversing directory for its components, for example file names.
5. Ctrl-R -- rereads the directory; works for virtual filesystems for example FTP VFS as well.
6. Ctrl-U -- swap panels; Ctrl-U does not switch panels if one panel contains the tree view.
7. Alt-F1 and Alt-F2  produces the list of logical disks.
8. Ctrl-L switches to the information panel. Information panel should provide at least statistics about the current directory and current drive. If directory description file (by default file dirinfo in Windows implementations) is available it is displayed as well. There is no way to define the dirinfo file.  The file that serve as dirinfo file should be user-definable with the possibility to define it with regular expression (this way multiple files can be defined, if desirable).
9. Ctrl-Q switches to quick view in which movement of cursor on the active panel changes the view of the file in the passive panel.

Shell Windows compatibility

Far demonstrates almost perfect compatibility in this category...

1. OFM should behave like tile windows manager and be able to expand command line (which is a minimized to a single line third, borderless shell terminal window) -- to full screen, to half screen vertically, to half screen horizontally and to quarter of the screen (half with one panel hidden):
2. Command line should should allow to execute multiple command from it with macrosubstitution of macrovariables and shortcuts to the current file to the command line (Ctrl-Enter) as well as  path to left and right panels (Ctrl-[/Ctrl-]).
3. Ctrl-O should maximize expand shell terminal windows to maximum size (hide both panels by default):
   1. In the resulting screen standard shell terminal functionality should be present as if this is a telnet session to localhost. For example, if the shell for a particular OS provides browsing of shell history with arrow keys this should work.
   2. If current directory was changed during the work in command window, the active directory in the panel should reflect the new directory on return to panel view by pressing Ctrl-O again.
4. Terminal session look& feel compatibility. Expanded window should behave like terminal session  (like in GNU screen). For bash at least the following features should be present:
   1. Ability to change command prompt (Unix)
   2. "Arrow" access to history  (Unix)
   3. Ctrl-R search in command history (Unix)
   4. Ability to scroll windows back
5. Ctrl-F1/Ctrl-F2 should provide a view of the shell screen with overlaid one panel (hide one panel exposing underling shell terminal window and results of execution of previous command, if any).
6. Ability to shrink panels 50% or gradual shirking/expansion of panels (vertical shrinking compatibility
   1. With one panel hidden (left or right) in both half window mode and full terminal windows mode.
   2. Ability to expand active panel to full screen

Compatibility of F1..F12 and other F-keys operations

Far demonstrates perfect compatibility in this category...

• F1 -- compatible -- hypertext help is available. FAR uses standard Windows help format which is better then format historically implemented by Norton Commander before advent of html.
• F2 -- incompatible  No hotkey for entering User menu exists. (F2 means Reread source window duplicated with Ctrl-R) but user menu is available by the name of Start menu (Option Start on the top toolbar).
• F3 - compatible
• F4 - compatible, built-in internal editor exists.
• F5/F6  is compatible. Copy/Move "overwrite" dialog windows now contains information about the size and date of creation of files althouth if target is newer then source the info should be in red.  This was a serious weakness in previous version, weakness that used to hurt usability. In this respect version 8 is an improvement...
• F7 is compatible. Alt-F7 creates soft link from the file in the current directory to the directory in passive panel
  
• F8 compatible 
  
• F9 and F10 -- Main menu activation and exit 

Tree View Panel compatibility

1. Alt-F10 is used to invoke tree panel. You can to copy files to the tree target but target of passive tree is not highlighted (it is still visible in the information line).  This mode in tree part should have look& feel of Microsoft File Explorer. 
2. Movement of cursor does not affect passive panel. Enter should change directory of the passive panel and FAR does exactly this
3. Noncompatible: Quick search in tree view works and is compatible -- you start typing letters with alt-letter prefix and instant search using already typed prefix is performed. Jump to directories with the same prefix down the tree is implemented and works. Note: search should be activated
4. F5/F6 compatibility from tree view to passive panel.  -- compatible
5. Same nesting level navigation (Via Grey+/Grey-) is implemented properly
6. Quick view mode in tree view is not implemented properly. Should list content of each directory in info panel (Like In Microsoft File Explorer)
7. Pressing Ctrl-Enter copy directory to the command line
8. Noncompatible: F4 in treeview mode does not allow to edit directory attributes
9. Navigation keys  Home/End and PgUp/PgDown  keys work as expected.

Directory search panel (NCD panel or Quick CD panel)

• Initial Focus of the tree is implemented correctly:  Alt-F10 produces tree view of the current panel starting with the current directory (not root!) and provides the the ability to select new current directory on this representation with Enter. 
• Noncompatible:  Refocusing the tree. You can put any directory "in focus" (position it in the middle of the panel) by pressing F5. 
• Rescanning with F2. Implemented althouth speed is not that great even of SSD disks... 
• Quick search input line is provided at the bottom of this panel as it should
• Ctrl-Enter jumps down the tree to the next directory with the same prefix.
• Copy(F5), move(F6) and File Find operation dialog boxes provide the possibility to select the target from the quick tree search panel (via F10).
• Noncompatible:  Same level of nesting navigation (+ and  -) is not implemented (should navigate on the same level of nesting of directories)

Files Selection/Deselection

1. Ins  behavior is compatible. It select a single file. Cursor moves one line down on selection; If Ins is pressed on already selected file it is deselected (toggle).
2. Gray+ and Gray-  behavior is compatible. They  select and deselect file using a regular expressions. Shell basic regular expressions only; for example the expression *a*.*  selects files like my_bak.tmp and my_bat.txt, not all files. Perl regular expressions are not supported.
3. Gray+/Gray- operations are persistent (second selection operation adds to existing selection);
4. Gray *  inverts the current selection
5. Named (savable/restorable) selection patterns are implemented
6. Select by file type, date range or custom script (FindFile-style selection) is implemented. In the current version selection by data range does not work.
7. Selections history is implemented.
8. Ability to separate individual regex with ";" is present
9. Extended or Perl-style regular expressions support as an option not implemented.

Quick view compatibility

• satisfactory. 
• Incorrect implementation Quick view for tree view (no ability to view files in directories in Windows File Explorer mode).
• Panelized Build-in viewer should be invoked for all files.-- Compatible.   Depending of type files are displayed either in text view or hex view.  Moves of the cursor up and down in the current panel in quick view mode should change the content of the current file in the passive panel with the viewer ( Infopanel)
• For archive content of the information files should be shown (list of information files should be customizable with a regular expressions (or a set of regular expressions), but default should include  File_id.diz, README, read.me, readme.1st). In case no description is available the top part of the toc of the archive should be shown.
• For directories basic stats and dirinfo file should be displayed. Here is an example from FAR:
  
• For executables the header should be shown. In windows typical ownership info should be displayed, if it is present.
• If there are selected files exit from internal viewer in info panel should display the next highlighted file, not the next file
• In tree view Windows File Explorer mode should be implemented

Macro compatibility

• There is built-in and pretty powerful keyboard macro mechanism in all versions of FAR. It is very badly documented.

FindFile compatibility

• Generally compatible
• Supports DOS style regular expressions
• Panelize command was renamed to feed to the listbox.
• Unlike FAR can search for files belonging to certain data range (in FAR this function for years remain buggy)
• Advanced search provides some useful extensions (find files not containing the specified text, etc)

Command line execution compatibility

• Compatible

Sorting and filtering file and directories in panel

• Compatible

User Menu

• User menu uses old style macrovariables. That's a bad idea because of the importance of this feature for the advanced users. MC-style macrovariable naming should be also be implemented as additional feature. Most important macros like name of the file in the current panel are supported. Ability to view execution of the command is not as good and unless you take precautions the windows folds after the command finishes. The is no attempt to overlay command execution windows on panels to provide functionality typical for command line OFMs like FAR. 
• For your "user commands" you can provide a short-cut key in classic F2-letter sequence of classic Norton Commander. There is no capability to use Win key instead of F2.
• User menu is static. There is no visibility predicates that hide items that are not applicable for the current context for example many items that work with the list of selected files if there is no selected files.
• The latest version of FAR supports LUA so user menu functionality can be make richer than in competition. So far it is too early to tell. Generally absence of macro language is a serious shortcoming as on modem computers additional space for scripting language interpreter is minuscule.
• No support for Perl-compatible regular expressions.

Additional file commands compatibility

• Compatible
• Ctrel-A is used fro acctibutes change menu. Allow also change timestamps for the file. Nice option is restore original ;-)

Association management compatibility (extensions menu)

• Unclear

Compare directories

Weak implementation of only classic Norton style attributes comparison.

Built-in viewer:

Built-in view in FAR is OK.

Built-in Editor

Built-in editor is weak, but can be extended by plugins.

Archive virtual file system 

• Arhive VFS - excellent, supports unpacking  ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, ACE with RAR as archiver (more with additional plug-ins)
• Archives are handled like subdirectories. You can easily copy files to and from archives. The appropriate archiving program is automatically called. pkzip, arj, lha, rar, ace and uc2 are all supported.

History and favorites compatibility

• History is excellent and is separate for files and directories (Alt-F11 Alt-F12). One of the best I saw...
• Directory favorites are rudimentaly but exist

The current version of FAR has the best score in OFM1999 standard compatibility test.  It also has probably the best archive virtual file system implementation, as Eugene Roshal is the author of RAR -- a leading archiver.  FAR has the best supports the quick view feature (important part of OFM paradigm) and Directory search panel. Generally  FTP support of advanced elements of the Orthodox standard was and is unmatched. From the very beginning till today it was and remains the leader among command-line OFM implementations for Windows.

• Macro variables old NC-style naming scheme need to be augmented by adopting MC naming scheme.
• No support for resorting of the panel with the mouse and some other important mouse-based operations:
  • Currently a mouse click on file attributes like  name, size,date,  in the panel header does not  change the sort order, as OFM1999  requires although FAR provides a hot key (Ctrl-F12) that produced the menu. Clicking with the mouse on a symbol "n"  in the upper left corner of each panel   provides the the list of drives.
  • It would be nice if when you can click on the current file in the panel information line (last line  in the panel) Far should select all files with this extension and place extension in the select history list. Optionally it can hide all other files. The next click should toggle this filtering.  This is achievable via Ctrl-I, but clumsy and thus  underused.  BTW Ctrl-I panel does not have history :-(. Repeated double-clicking should restore full view of the panel.
    
• There is no way to configure information in the panel information line.    That should be configurable via F9/Option/File description modes
  

• Search on the directory tree for the target (for example F5-F10 combination) is buggy. If many files with the same name are present sometimes Far is unable to find the necessary one. Also traversing the tree for the same file names is non-standard.
  

• Gray+ and Gray- does not provide quick navigation on the same level for tree view. Tree navigation panel is also buggy and quick search often does not produce a hit if many names exists on different levels of the tree. It just go to some inner level and is deadlocked there. Quick search should not take into account nesting of directories.
  

• Find File operation (Ctrl-F7) cannot search using date and size due to a bug in fleter implementation that exists for ten years or so, and generally is very  (uncharacteristically for this very gifted author) basic.  Find panel was substantially improved by adding the panelize command, but still it require work as panelizing cannot hide full path to the files/directories that are panelized.
  

• Far merged extension menu which specifies operations for execute (Enter), view(F3) and Edit(F4) into one and stores them in the Registry. It does not provide a way to migrate other OFM association tables into the new format. The idea of merging the association tables so that one can see all three associations at once (as well as of using Windows association table as a default association -- it probably would be better if Window association would have equal standing with user defined one) is questionable -- the loss of flexibility of having separate tables in a simple text format probably outweigh all benefits. For example the ability to include the same sub tables into both extension menu and the user menu is lost. Using Windows registry for storing information is a mixed blessing. For me personally it looks very inconvenient and confusing. Crash of Windows registry is a bad enough and frequent enough event not to overload it with trivial stuff. It also means that automatic generation, formatting, merging, etc. of extension list, launched file list, etc became impossible. I consider it a very bad design decision.

  The main point is that in OFM there should be a possibility of dynamic association when user is presented with several choices. The classic example when one can benefit from that feature is the use of extension .DOC. It is so overused (text, RTF, MS Word native format contents are common), that the correct choice of viewer is often impossible without examining the first bytes of the file.
  

• WEB browser style enhancements for directories (up one level and down one level using Left and Right ) are not supported
  

• If server is unavailable or down FTP client keeps trying to connect for a long time with no cancel button. It can be pretty annoying. Generally FTP client should start as a separate thread so that it can be killed within FAR.

Advanced features implemented

Among advanced features that FAR support are:

• Concept of plug-ins. This is a revolutionary feature that makes FAR a class of its own. Plugins have a special, well documented API  Currently a considerable library of third party plugins exist -- see FAR file manager plugins.   Among them:
  • Select from Clipboard -- by Michael Yutsis (Michael is an important contributor to the OFM field. He contributed several interesting add-ons to VC and classic DOS macrorecoder that was used by many DOS users in the former USSR region. He also published several interesting add-ons to VC in the Softpanorama bulletin).
  • Descss11    -- Description Search & Select: Plug-in for FAR 1.52 by Michael Yutsis
  • Registry browser -- by Michael Yutsis
  • File name completion -- Version 1.3 by Michael Yutsis. Expands host and resource names too!
  • Here is top 12 plugins from Far PlugRinG Site - Download
    

    Name

    Total votes

    Total

    Average mark

    2. Search And Replace

    1481

    13317

    8.99

    3. Far Navigator (Proxy...

    881

    7300

    8.28

    4. Colorer

    781

    6689

    8.56

    5. 7-ZIP

    279

    2371

    8.49

    6. WinSCP

    231

    2150

    9.30

    7. Plug

    215

    1691

    7.86

    8. Unicode Wizard

    184

    1506

    8.18

    9. Extended File Copy

    138

    1222

    8.85

    10. Registry browser

    135

    1154

    8.54

    11. FARMail (POP3)

    141

    1133

    8.03

    12. WEB Editor

    82

    647

    7.89

     

• One of the best implementation of "history of everything" concept in OFMs. History is present in several important domains:
  • Command history (with the ability to save it).
  • File view/edit history -- very useful addition (Alt-F11)
  • Visited folders (directory)  history (Alt-F12)
  • selection histories.
    
• Ability to work with UNIX-style basic regular expressions in selections, for example [c-f,t]*a.?xt. No extended of Perl-style regular expression support yet.
  
• Supports of keyboard macros (makes possible to add synonims for existing hotkeys, for example using Del key instead of F8 for deleting files.)
  
• Customizable file highlighting scheme;
  
• Ability to insert the list of selected files into the command line. That operation that VC performs with a single keystroke (Ctrl-I) FAR can do it using Windows clipboard and standard Windows key combinations: Ctrl-Ins to copy selected files (or command line, if it is not empty) to clipboard. Ctrl-Shift-Ins always copies selected files to clipboard, regardless command line state. Shift-Ins to paste clipboard contents to command line. Such behavior is probably more flexible, because allows to insert selected file names to any other program, which can work with clipboard, but VC Ctrl-I capture the most frequently use case. Jury is still out about which implementation is better.
  
• Integration of windows clipboard with built-in editor with the ability to select text in command line windows and paste it in GUI-window
  
• Case conversion for files (this is a very nice feature; it was first implemented in FC);
  
• Selection enhancements
  • Shift-Gray+/Shift-Gray- for selecting deselecting all files regardless of current selection (was first implemented in DN, but is "forgotten" in v.1.50; FAR consistently has this feature since v. 1.20)
  • Option of changing case to the lowercase of all files in copy and move operations
  • Ctrl-Gray+/- can be used to select files with same extension as current;
  • Alt-Gray+/- can select all files with same name as current.

• The best implementation of the information windows concept. Information windows in Far is a three line entity. regular line in the second. FAR use the panel bottom border as the third line of the information windows (for displaying the number of files in the current directory) and upper delimiter of the information line as the first line (for showing the number of selected files). current file name is displayed in real case. if length of the file in more then a length of the column in the listing part of the panel them full name is displayed (or in case the name is too long just tail from the last symbol displayed in the information panel).
• Flexible panel width and double-width window (single windows on the screen) like in NCW;
• Useful  treatment of Ctrl-0..Ctrl-9 key sequences as a selectors of 10 predefined panel templates (panel templates are customizable).

Timeline

??-Oct-2003 -- FAR 1.70 beta 5 release
17-Dec-2000 -- FAR 1.70 beta 2 release
26-Jun-2000 -- FAR 1.65 maintenance release
17-May-2000 -- FAR 1.64 maintenance release
24-May-2000 -- FAR 1.64 beta release
19-Oct-1999 -- FAR 1.63 maintenance release
19-Aug-1999 -- FAR 1.63 beta release
24-May-1999 -- FAR 1.62 maintenance release
27-Feb-1999 -- FAR 1.61 maintenance release
19-Oct-1998 -- FAR 1.60 maintenance release
01-Jul-1998 -- FAR 1.52 maintenance release
30-Mar-1998 -- FAR 1.51 maintenance release
15-Feb-1998 -- FAR 1.50 shareware released.
08-Oct-1997 -- FAR 1.50 beta released.

New in Far 1.70

Edited from what's new file:

• "Smart" associations: If several associations are specified for a single extension, and if some associations have the "IF EXIST" condition, the action selection menu shows only the items for which the condition is true.

• The link creation function (Alt-F6). It works only under Windows NT/2000. FAR shows an error message if the user tries to use it under Windows 95/98/Me.

• Ctrl-C/Ctrl-Ins - copies the current line from a history menu (Alt-F8, Alt-F11, Alt-F12) to the clipboard, so it can be edited.

• Shift-Enter key can be used in edit controls to insert a file name under cursor from the active panel. Very useful extension, but it probably should be added to edit control menu -- too many keys to remember.

• Pressing the '/','\' in Quick Search will go to directory. Attention: those who used Alt-\ as a macro to pop a Quick Search window up now can use a Alt-< key.

• Functional key bar is extended. It now reacts to three new key combinations - CtrlShift, AltShift, CtrlAlt. That applies to plugins too.

• Ctrl-U removes block in the dialog input lines.

• There is a possibility to specify a color for command line prompt, that allows to distinguish prompt from the entered command. Default color is the same as command line one.

• Ctrl-F copies the full file name as it is shown on the panel.

• Pressing Shift-F1 in the plug-in configuration menu shows the help topic "Config" for the current plug-in. If there is no such topic, the standard topic "Contents" is shown instead.

• Now the task list (Ctrl-W) is more user-friendly - attempts to move the cursor up from the first item or down from the last item cause the cursor to move to the last or the first item, respectively.

• "Screen grabber" function (Alt-Ins)

• The "Show selected first" mode (Shift-F12)

• It is possible to set the filler character for the "Wipe file" operation (Alt-Del) (see TechInfo #29).

• Alt-Shift-Left, Alt-Shift-Right, Alt-Shift-Home and Alt-Shift-End select the block in the command line also when the panels are on.

• Directories can be deleted when F8 or Shift-F8 is pressed in the tree panel.

• Support for the mouse wheel in Windows 2000

• The information panel (Ctrl-L) under Windows shows correct information for symbolic links (directory junctions and volume mount points) when entering such a directory.

• The internal viewer now is used for viewing descriptions. It allows to:
  - use word wrap in the description file;
  - scroll the description file;
  - switch code pages;
  - search in the description file (F7).

• Display of information about copying speed and time (see TechInfo#26)

• Pressing Ctrl-D on the command line deleted the block instead of moving the cursor one character to the right.

• Editor

  • Alt-Shift-F9 invokes the editor settings dialog.

  • If no block is selected, Alt-U and Alt-I indent the current line.

• Viewer

  • Alt-Shift-F9 invokes the viewer settings dialog.

  • When the "[x] Save file position" is turned on, the file viewing mode (normal or hex) is stored separately for each file.

  •  Clicking the mouse on the status line:
    - on the code page indicator - shows the code page selection menu
    - on the position indicator - shows the "Go to position" dialog

• QuickView: Under Windows, when viewing symbolic links, the path to the source directory is shown.

•  Help

  • KeyBar in the help system.

  •  New section "Operating system commands".

• File attributes

  • One dialog for any actions.

  • If multiple file system objects are selected, or if the attributes of
    a directory are changed with "Process subfolders" enabled, the check
    boxes will have three states:
    "[x]" - the attribute is set (or set the attribute)
    "[ ]" - the attribute is not set (or clear the attribute)
    "[?]" - the attribute is undefined (or do not touch the attribute)
    
    [+] For selected objects:
    "[x]" - the attribute is set for all objects
    "[ ]" - the attribute is not set for all objects
    "[?]" - the attribute is set for some of the objects
    
     If there are no folders among the selected objects, the option "Process subfolders" will be disabled.
    
     For symbolic links, the attribute setting dialog shows additional information about the source directory (NTFS/Win2K).
    
     In the panel mode 5 (Ctrl-5), if a directory is a symbolic link (Reparse point) (NTFS/Win2K), the letter 'L' will be shown additionally.
    
    [It is possible to configure distinct colors for symbolic links (NTFS/Win2K) in the "Files highlighting" dialog.
    
    ...If you do not want to change the file time, leave the respective field empty. You can push the "Blank" button to clear all the date and time fields and then change an individual component of the date or time, for example, only month or only minutes. All the other date and time components will remain unchanged..."
    

• Macros
  
  The look of the key assignment dialog has been changed.
  
  An overwrite warning is shown if a macro already exists, and a warning is shown when trying to delete a macro.
  
  Three new macro areas: "Info", "QView", "Tree",.
  
  4 new modes for panel macro commands:
  "NoFilePanels" - cannot be executed in file panels.
  "NoPluginPanels" - cannot be executed in plug-in panels.
  "NoFolders" - cannot be executed if the current element is a folder.
  "NoFile" - cannot be executed if the current element is a file.
  By default all the modes are set to off. (The modes are also shown in the macro parameters dialog -Ctrl-Shift-.) See TechInfo#22 for details.
  
  As an experiment, 7 new macro commands have been added: "$Day", "$Month", "$Year", "$Hour", "$Min", "$Sec" For example "$Year . $Day . $Month . t x t" macro will generate a
  string "2000.21.12.txt" for 21 december 2000. "$MMode" - change macro mode See TechInfo#22 for details.
  

• User menu

  • If, while editing command in the user menu, the label is not entered
    and the "OK" button is pressed, then the dialog is not closed, because it is
    possible to lose the commands that may have been entered. To exit the menu
    one can use the "Esc" key or the "Cancel" button.
    

• Extension selection

  • Select files with the same extension as the current file extension  Alt-Grey+

  • Deselect files with the same extension as the current file extension   Alt-Grey-  

  • Select files with the same extension as the current file name Ctrl-Grey+

  • Deselect files with the same extension as the current file name Ctrl-Grey- 
    

New in Far 1.63

• New command line option: -u <username> It allows to have separate settings for different users. Can be useful for a power user to have special setting for two or more different FAR invocations. Settings for non-default users are stored under registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Far\Users

• Shift-Enter key can be used in edit controls to insert a file name under cursor from the active panel. Very useful extension, but it probably should be added to edit control menu -- too many keys to remember.

• New %%S variable in archive support plugin allows to specify place in the command line to insert optional switches.

New in FAR 1.62 (from Whatsnew.txt, slightly edited)

1. "Search in archives" option is implemented in "Find file" dialog.
2. Directory names like "dir1\dir2\dir3" are allowed in "Create directory" command. FAR will try to create all directories of the path.  
3. Internal viewer now can store position in the file:

   • RightCtrl-0 -- RightCtrl-9 store current position in viewed file, Ctrl-0 - Ctrl-9 restore it;

   • Alt-BS and Ctrl-Z undo position change;

   • Alt-F8 changes current position.

4. Press F4 in "Plugin commands" menu to assign hot key to menu item. Hot key can be a letter or a digit. This feature is designed to simplify access to items of this menu from keyboard macro commands
5. Plugins can be called from the internal editor. Several such plugins ("Case conversion", "Draw lines", "Auto wrap", "Brackets matching" and "Align block") are added to the distribution;
6. In FTP client "Use firewall" option can be specified separately for each site.
7. "B" and "M" modifiers for "DM", "DC", "DA" column types:
   • "B" modifier allows to show file time in brief (Unix like) format;
   • "M" modifier forces usage of text month names.

   For example, you may use column type "DMBM" to show file modification time in brief format with text month names.

8. If "Save file position" viewer or editor option is on and user manually set character table, this table will be restored when open viewed or edited file next time.

9. Ctrl-Shift-F3 and Ctrl-Shift-F4 always call internal viewer and internal editor ignoring file associations.

10. "!#" modifier specified before file association symbols forces them to refer to the passive panel. For example, !#!.! denotes a current file name on the passive panel.
11. "Set "Hidden" attribute to new description lists" option in "File description" dialog.
12. In archive support plugin 'P' (path only) modifier can be used also with %%A and %%a variables.
13. Several enhancements of in the Plugins API

Problem areas

• Built-in FTP VFS is showing age and behaves very strangely with some FTP servers.  Probably an alternative FTP plugin should be used.

• History of visited directories was implemented incorrectly (should be two of them: one for each panel as usually each panel is used for the specific area of the filesystem or ftp VFS).  Also the current implementation is too primitive and does not allow moving of selected directories into "permanent" favorites list, sorting by name, etc

Suggestions

There are several suggestions that might help to make version 1.70 even more user friendly:

• System of macrovariables is outdated and without breaking compatibility should be enhances with mc-style system of macrovariables
• Built-in editor should support user menu like in mc. All code is already written and just needs to be reused.
• Implementation of console command windows should allow scrolling.
• F5-F5 should synchronize active and passive panels. Alt-PgDN  should open the directory under the cursor (or archive under the cursor) directory  on the passive panel, Alt-PgUp should show the parent directory on the passive panel as required by OFM2004.
• It would be nice if you can click with the mouse on current file in the panel information line (last line in the panel) OFM should select all files with this extension and place extension in the select history list.  
• It might be beneficial to implement the operation of elimination of duplicates entries from all histories. This is especially useful for Folders history and without it the folders history in not very usable.
• There should be a possibility to hide path in the panelized search view. That helps to find duplicates. Full path can be visible for the current file only in panel status line (the last line of the panel)

Webliography

Internal

• FAR Softpanorama page -  page oriented on advanced users of FAR macro manager
• FAR Manager Tips
• Far Keyboard Macros
• FAR Macrovariables
• FAR Keyboard Map

External

• FAR Manager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Far Manager Official Site - main
• Far Manager Official Site plugins
• Plugring.farmanager.com
• WinSCP Plugin to FAR File Manager -- WinSCP
• farplugs - Плагины для Far Manager - Google Project Hosting
• FarManager - conemu-maximus5 - Windows Console Emulator, Far Manager plugins - Google Project Hosting

Etc

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Last modified: March 12, 2019