request: caja file manager for non-Mate Puppies

[Keisha]

Shiba Inu Mate features the Mate desktop's file manager, caja.

When set to its compact display mode, caja is much like my beloved Rox-Filer, only better.

Unfortunately, merely copying caja and its evident dependencies in doesn't work:

Code: Select all

# caja

(caja:2595): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: Settings schema 'org.mate.caja.preferences' is not installed

Trace/breakpoint trap

And this is the stumper, the point at which I run out of know-how.

It wouldn't surprise me if it requires half the Mate desktop as dependencies, and it might be impossible for reasons of fundamental architectural differences...but, if anyone has managed to duplicate just the caja part of Mate, such that a .pet or .sfs can provide caja to, say for example, upup-raring-3.9.9.1 running Openbox,...

[mikeb]

well anythings possible.... half the gnome desktop probably needed...its a tangled beastie.

I have done it for thunar but the requirements are not too bad if you dont have xfce4.... nice file manager...indeed there are some standalone ones like xfe that seem popular.

Something better than rox is not too hard to find and copy and paste are nice to have.

Mike

[Keisha]

...I have done it for thunar but the requirements are not too bad if you dont have xfce4.... nice file manager...indeed there are some standalone ones like xfe that seem popular.

Something better than rox is not too hard to find and copy and paste are nice to have...

PCMan, Thunar, SpaceFM, Nautilus and their ilk don't float my boat. Perhaps if I did only one thing with my PC, and if I had just a tiny screen to work on, then their simplicity might appeal. But as far as I'm concerned, if you've got plenty of screen real estate as I do, they're awful.

Yeah, I know, Midnight Commander is da beez knees if you dig text mode.

As for xfe, worker, beesoft commander, emelfm2 and the rest of the two dozen or so dual-pane file managers for Linux that don't require some humongous desktop environment...I've tried all of them and, in my opinion, in that category, nothing beats Double Commander (or, arguably better, Total Commander under wine).

Rox works just fine for me. I've seen where you have trouble with Rox on large directories, but I have not experienced any trouble, even with my /mnt/sdb4/word which has 2,245 items.

But caja has a tree-view left pane, jump-to-recent, and a whole horde of goodies, and otherwise works similar enough to Rox that the transition is painless.

Mate doesn't provide right-click-on-empty-space menu and middle-click windows-list-switching like the combination of the Rox desktop and Openbox, which as far as I'm concerned is the unassailable champion of lightweight GUI goodness.

[mikeb]

If you like complicated then perhaps dolphin.

I have a family who want to be able to use their computers .

Drag and hope only in rox is a user unfriendly joke though at least you can turn the single click off. Crashing was pretty much on the cards trying to do windows system rescue...I soon stopped using it as its embarrassing in public when yer desktop freezes up in mid recovery... very windows 98 like in that respect.
Do your windows resize properly?..endless mouse clicking needed here at times.
Too many windows are a pain on laptops/netbooks with smaller screens too and always overlap to block yer drag and drop games.
The copy/move dialogs are a pain when true quiet is not allowed...not got all day to click an ok button and its soooo slow...rox and gtk1 was way way faster in the respect.
It is handy for fiddling with the system though.

I suppose I tend not to think in geek terms and use computers to actually do things rather than stare at an overstuffed screen all day long and post shots of it

mike

[Keisha]

If you like complicated then perhaps dolphin...

does anybody actually use kde?

Caja does seem like the perfect balance between complicated and not. Sure works well in Shiba Inu Mate. Now if only I could ditch the rest of the Mate desktop...

I have a family who want to be able to use their computers...Drag and hope only in rox is a user unfriendly joke...

Well, admittedly I have not tried any Puppies earlier than Precise-5.6.1, but in the Precise Puppies I have tried, which if I understand correctly are community productions led by 01micko, Rox works flawlessly. Ditto in the upup-raring-3.9.9.1 Puppy by pemasu, though his 3.9.9.2 had so many hiccups I soon reverted to 3.9.9.1. BarryK's Quirky Unicorn also provides a Rox-Filer which has been, so far, utterly flawless.

Do your windows resize properly?...

OK, perhaps "utterly flawless" is too strong of praise...but, almost always yes.

I'm using the Debian 3.5.0-7 .deb of Openbox which is imho much better behaved than newer versions. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Also imho it would be nice if the resize function in Rox would take into account the length of the title heading, so that the resized window always shows the full title, but it doesn't.

Very large subdirectories occasionally need to be up-sized a little with a corner drag, and very small subdirectories sometimes resize a little too small. But these glitches are not serious enough that I would rate them even a minor inconvenience.

Maybe Rox works better on a large screen than a small one.

endless mouse clicking needed here at times...

Not here...if memory serves. Can you describe a specific scenario, where another file manager is better?

Too many windows are a pain on laptops/netbooks with smaller screens too and always overlap to block yer drag and drop games.

Very true. If I had a small screen I might like SpaceFM or Double Commander better.

The copy/move dialogs are a pain when true quiet is not allowed...

Ah, so that's what's eatin' ya. Yeah, but that's what cp -f is for. Hmm, I'll have to boot into Shiba Inu Mate and see if caja suffers in that regard...just a minute...

(back) Hmm...

Caja, when asked to copy over the entire contents of a duplicate subdir (/etc/* to /root-etc-image)...asks once if you're sure you want to overwrite a directory...gives you a checkbox for "Apply this to all files"...then asks if you want to overwrite the first file...gives you a checkbox for, again, "Apply this to all files"...it appears the overwrite happened after that, without further prompting. So, looks like quiet mode does work in caja...

Um...but,...when I try to subsequently open either the source or the destination directory in caja...caja...freezes. Well, no, it doesn't exactly freeze, just that the "working" indicator light keeps...well, working. Have to hit the stop button to make it stop working and show the directory contents.

And then...trying to open another, unrelated subdir (/lib)...caja...couldn't.

Rox has no problem opening the source or the destination directories and /ib. Yep, the copy did happen. So, yes, caja does have a working quiet mode.

So, provided a caja can be made which doesn't look like it's frozen when opening a directory it has just copied from or to...and, doesn't freeze when trying to open /lib...yep, still very much would like a caja .pet or .sfs...

[mikeb]

we meet again

well go into folder, come out..double click to resize...well go into same folder, come out..double click to resize.. go into folder, come out..double click to resize... go into any folder, come out..double click to resize

pain ... best compromise was to use auto resize icons based on number of files. ANY file browser is better in this respect...size the window and forget about it..scroll bars are predictable.

KDE..dont know...3 was nice in some ways..4 is worse than Vista...and locking apps into the desktop is a microsoft perversion. Dolphins reminded me of a sophisticated thunar thats all...not even sure how KDE dependant it is.

Thunar...copy a folder or several thousand selected files...browse to destination...paste (drag and drop if it floats yer boat)... watch nice true progress bar...no other intervention needed and similar speed as cp -r...is that not what GUI are for??? Why ROX makes such a pigs ear of this i don't know but it WAS much better on gtk1...I clocked up to 4 times the speed and no button pressing...or at least if it was you could keep clicking instead of having to move the cursor off between each one... I don't want a wrestling match to move files around and i don't want to use the command line when a gui should handle it just fine... yes big beef....after all we are talking file MANAGERS

As to your request its looking for items generated by gnome daemons... so thats what needed basically. For Thunar its only the loss of hal that restricts its functions on puppy.

mike

[Keisha]

well go into folder, come out..double click to resize...well go into same folder, come out..double click to resize.. go into folder, come out..double click to resize... go into any folder, come out..double click to resize

It must have to do with the size of the screen, and maybe the video driver, and maybe the window manager. I have Rox set to always resize, and I can go back and forth from a large outer directory into a small subdirectory and back ad infinitum without needing to manually resize. In its default JWM under Quirky Unicorn, or in Openbox 3.5.0-7.deb under upup-3.9.9.1, the windows open in the same place each time as well.

Thunar...copy a folder or several thousand selected files...browse to destination...paste (drag and drop if it floats yer boat)... watch nice true progress bar...no other intervention needed and similar speed as cp -r...

No kidding...copy, browse to destination, paste? I'll have to take another look.

Why ROX makes such a pigs ear of this i don't know but it WAS much better on gtk1...I clocked up to 4 times the speed and no button pressing...or at least if it was you could keep clicking instead of having to move the cursor off between each one...

Well, in Quirky Unicorn (posting from it now) you at least don't have to move the cursor off between each one. But yeah, lack of working quiet mode in Rox is definitely a minus.

Four times the speed...interesting. In upup-3.9.9.1 and Quirky Unicorn, I do not notice any speed difference between Rox and cp -r.

Thanks for the info on gnome (or, I suppose, Mate) daemons, and Thunar and hal ( a bit over my head).

2 AM here, nodding off, so off to bed. Back later.

[mikeb]

hal is just for the drive icons detection/automounting.

Hmm well was testing on a pentium 3 which would highlight slowdowns. cpu was consumed drawing the dialog information.... to clarify this was for copying hundreds of files rather than one large one. Its actually a gtk1 to gtk2 slowdown which rox happens to use. The non moving cursor on buttons was fixed by someone on puppy fortunately.

resizing...could be a size issue... 1280x1024 screen. Could be xorg version...dunno...but its real tedious as you can imagine.

I usually use the bookmark side pane and address window with toolbar buttons...seems more useful than the default tree and button path way. Also easy to copy the address for say the terminal. I also use the bookmarks for showing active NFS shares and mounted drives appear in there. makes for very fast browsing to places you usually want.

Ok have a goood sleep

mike