Total Commander

aristideau · New Member Joined: 07 Apr 2017 Posts: 1

I have migrated to OSX both personally and professionally (PHP developer) and I have been able to find a OSX version of every tool that I had in the Windows world except for a TC replacement.
Some have come close (Commander One), but none have a plugin feature and only a handful come close to the features in TC.
I am curious if there are any other OSX users that would love to see an OSX version of TC (I just wish there was a decent version of Delphi for OSX to make the process easier for you).

Lefteous · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2017 8:34 am Post subject:

I would also love to see a MacOS version of TC but Christian Ghisler wrote many times that he won't do it. A few years ago there was no serious commander program on the Mac. This has changed quite a bit. Now the situation is comparable to the situation on Windows. There are many file managers on Windows but there is only one Total Commander.

UI technology isn't really the problem here I suppose. The 64 bit version of TC is written in Lazarus which also exists for Mac.
A program like a file manager requires many OS-dependent functions. I think this is solvable as well by some kind of actraction layer.
It becomes more effort though when OS-specific functionality must be considered.

Another often mentioned fact is that the mac platform is difficult to invest in when it comes to system tools like a file manager. Apple may restrict installations of such tools even more than now in the future.

ghisler(Author) · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 7:21 am Post subject:

Indeed there are several reasons which prevent me from making a Mac version:
1. It would require a LOT of time. Even with Lazarus available, TC calls many Windows functions directly, so it couldn't just be ported easily.
2. Plugins: Plugins are just Windows DLLs, so they would all have to be ported to Mac too. When you look at the situation with 64-bit plugins, it would be even less likely to see Mac plugins.
3. The Apple store sandbox requirements make a file manager impossible. If Apple decides one day to only allow store apps, the whole development would be for nothing.

So I recommend that you either use a native Mac file manager, or use TC vie Windows emulator if you need a specific plugin or function.
_________________
Author of Total Commander
http://www.ghisler.com

Lefteous · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 7:47 am Post subject:

When using a Mac I personally use TC in a virtual machine. While it looks a bit strange in a Mac environment it works quite well - much better than using it in Wine or Crossover.

I'm currently thinking about writing plugins that could support me and other users having a similar environment. This could be e.g. formats like DMG or PKG or supporting Mac-style metadata.