Re: Sunrise Commander: Version 3 released.

[escherdragon@gmail.com]

On 13 Mar, 08:30, rustom <rustompm...@gmail.com> wrote:
(...)
> Any suggestions for someone wanting to learn to usesunrise??
(...)

(Ooops, I didn't notice this was sent to the newsgroup. Here is the
answer I sent to Rustom:)

The Sunrise Commander is just another OFM, so experience with any
other file
manager of the same family (Norton, Midnight, Total, Far, etc, etc,
etc) is all
you need to know the philosophy and basic capabilities of all of them.

0) Find two good key shortcuts and assign them to the sunrise and
sunrise-cd
functions (e.g. mine are C-c x and C-c X).

1) To get acquainted specifically with the capabilities offered by
Sunrise, I
think the best first step is to get and install the Buttons extension
from:

   http://joseito.republika.pl/sunrise-x-buttons.el.gz

it'll provide you with a nice third pane (at the bottom) with buttons
you can
click to perform many basic operations. The trick with those buttons
is that
they're labeled with their equivalent shortcuts, so in no time you
memorize them
so you don't have to reach out for the mouse. In general the highest
productivity can be achieved when using exclusively the keyboard --
use the
mouse rather as kind of side-wheels to learn the basics (or to work
while eating
a sandwich), then just drop it.

2) Once you know the buttons, go for the listing of bindings in the
describe-mode message (just press h while in sunrise mode).

3) You'll be best set off with Sunrise if you use some kind of Linux
or MacOS
X. On Windows there's unfortunately a heck lot of stuff you have to
set up first to
make all the emacs capabilities integrated in Sunrise work. In
particular try to
have AVFS running in your box -- it will allow to transparently
navigate into all
kinds of archives (zip, rar, jar, even mbox) -- great deal.
Unfortunately AFAIK
there's no AVFS for Windows. BTW Archlinux offers Sunrise with AVFS
and other
goodies conveniently placed in one single package.

4) Explore all the configuration capabilities Sunrise offers by
typing:

  M-x configure-group RET sunrise RET

5) Master Emacs Dired. After all, Sunrise is nothing more than a fancy
front end
for all the amazing capabilities Dired offers. One aspect of dired
I've found
particularly useful is dired marks (m marks one file, t toggles all
marks in the
current directory, u unmarks one file, U removes all marks). Most
Sunrise and
Dired commands can work on all marked files and directories at once.

6) Learn Emacs. The WDired mode (C-x C-q) puts you in a regular emacs
buffer
that gives you all the possibilities you normally have while editing
text to
manipulate the names of your files and directories -- query replace,
regular
expressions, serial numbering... your imagination is the only limit.
Just one
warning: be careful and play a LOT with it before using it for real,
so there
are no surprises later and you don't shoot yourself in the foot.

7) Don't forget a OFM is just a semi-graphical extension of the
command
line. Learn when it's preferable to use the command line instead of
the
FM. Learn to use the FM to move fast through your directory hierarchy
(e.g. use
C-c t and C-c T to activate the CL from Sunrise, and the sunrise and
sunrise-cd
methods to switch to fullscreen CL and back to Sunrise from there. If
you're using an external shell for the CL (e.g. bash, or ksh, instead
of
eshell), learn when to use C-c C-j and C-c C-k to switch between line
and
character mode. Learn to use CLEX tags (%f, %F, %d, %D, etc) to write
fast your
paths and file names in the CL.

Cheers,

--
José A. Romero L.
escherdragon@gmail.com
"We who cut mere stones must always be envisioning cathedrals."
(Quarry worker's creed)