Main Window (Norton Commander Interface)

Norton Commander Interface is based on Norton Commander (and similar file managers). A local folder is displayed in the left panel and a remote folder in the right panel. Files are usually transfered between these two folders, though it is possible to transfer files into a different folder.

Learn if this interface is appropriate for your needs.

&screenshot(commander)

The screen of the interface has several components. Some of them are hidden by default. They are (from the top to the bottom):

Main toolbar with the main menu.
Local and remote panels, each having own toolbar, path display, directory tree (hidden by default) and status line.
Command line.
Background transfer queue list.
Key bar.
Status line.

You can show/hide most of these components from the View menu or using context menus.

Using the Interface
- Selecting Files
- Keyboard shortcuts
See Also

Using the Interface

While you can control the interface with mouse, it is primarily designed to be controlled using keyboard. If you are not familliar with the Norton Commander concept there are few important things you need to learn:

Use Tab key to switch between the left and right panel
Keyboard shortcut for file operations are sensitive to the panel that has focus. I.e. if the local panel has focus, pressing F5 (copy) will cause upload of select files, while if the remote panel has focus, pressing the same key will cause download of select files.
By default file selection works very different to what you may be used to from other Windows applications (like Windows explorer).

Selecting Files

By default file selection works very different to what you may be used to from other Windows applications. Differences are:

Selection is not cleared when you click outside of the selected region or change the focused file.
When selecting files using keyboard use Space or Insert key. Space just selects/unselects focused file. Insert beside the selection moves the focus to the next file. So you may select five files in a row by pressing Insert keys five times.
Learn more file selection shortcuts.
For other selection shortcuts see Mark menu.

You may wish to switch to standard Windows selection style.

Keyboard shortcuts

While the Norton Commander Interface tries to preserve standard Windows keyboard shortcuts, where possible, some of them collide with the original shortcuts of Norton Commander. In such cases meaning from Norton Commander is preserved. Example is F5 key, which means “copy” in Norton Commander, but “refresh” in Windows.

See full list of keyboard shortcuts in Norton Commander Interface