--- title: "A Dual Pane State of Mind" url: "https://courses.osherove.com/courses/commanding-total-commander/a-dual-pane-state-of-mind.md" canonical: "https://courses.osherove.com/courses/commanding-total-commander/a-dual-pane-state-of-mind/" tags: [] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Lesson 2 of 15 in Commanding Total Commander (Introduction), 3:38. Free video by Roy Osherove." usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # A Dual Pane State of Mind 1. [Courses](https://courses.osherove.com/#courses) 2. [Commanding Total Commander](https://courses.osherove.com/courses/commanding-total-commander/) 3. Introduction Lesson 2 of 15 Duration: 3:38 [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc) ## In this lesson Roy compares the Windows Explorer way of opening one directory, copying or cutting a file and pasting it into another, with a dual pane file manager, where a work pane and a target or viewer pane are always visible and Tab switches between them. He argues that this is faster because almost all file operations except editing and execution need a location and a different target location. His examples include copying files into a folder or into an existing zip file, uploading or downloading files when the work pane is an FTP folder, and viewing a file's contents, and he mentions extras such as FTP uploads and browsing ISO files. ## Transcript 630 words [\[00:01\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=1s) Now, here's the really nice thing about Total Commander. It requires you to work with a little bit of a different state of mind with how you're used to working with Windows Explorer. You see, with Windows Explorer, you would usually have to open some kind of directory, copy something or highlight a file or cut it or select it and then open another one and paste it in, etc. Well, with dual pane workflows like Total Commander, you always have two PL two panes visible to you. So that you always have a work pane and a target or a viewer pane on one side. [\[00:37\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=37s) So sometimes I would have a work pane on the left or sometimes would have the work pane on the right. It doesn't really matter. And you switch between them usually using tab. And the thing is once you get used to this kind of workflow things become much faster because almost all file operations except maybe editing and execution require a a a location and then a different target location either a different file or a different directory. So it makes sense that dual pane file managers are very very useful. [\[01:12\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=72s) So, here's an example of how you work when you have a dual pane file manager. On the work pane, let's say you're on the left pane. Now, you would locate files and directories. And then, for example, you would choose to zip or unzip that file directory or copy and upload it somewhere or you want to know what's inside it or you just want to execute it. If you want to execute it, you don't need the other pane. But if you want to do all the other things, the other pane becomes very useful. You see, if you want to do that, then you go to the other pane and you say, "Okay, let's find, the directory I want to zip the files into." It could be the same directory, could be a different directory. [\[01:52\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=112s) It could be already putting those files into an existing zip file. So, just actually going into a zip file and copying files into a zip file from left to right. So the direction is I do something on the work pane and then I execute an action towards the right pane. For example, I take a bunch of files and put them in a folder. I take a bunch of files and I upload them or I take a bunch of files and I download them to the local machine. So the work pane might actually be an FTP folder. [\[02:24\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=144s) If I want to see the loc the content of a file, I highlight it and then I press special shortcut and I see the contents of that stuff or I can just execute something. So that new state of mind usually what happens is that you you do multiple actions and it's very easy to always have those two open next to each other instead of having them in different windows. And you can of course have all the nice features like having a full history of where you last copied stuff to etc. [\[02:59\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=179s) So it just makes things faster and easier. And that's just the basic stuff. Once you get used to the basic stuff, then you have all the extra benefits that these file managers do, which is nothing to do with the fact that they're dual pane. For example, they allow you to do FTP uploads. They allow you to browse the content of ISO files, allow you to almost do a lot of file related things without leaving the file manager. [\[03:31\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChCF1PSVjc&t=211s) We're going to see just the basic of getting around with Total Commander in the next video. [Previous lesson Why Total Commander?](https://courses.osherove.com/courses/commanding-total-commander/why-total-commander/) [Next lesson Initial Options](https://courses.osherove.com/courses/commanding-total-commander/initial-options/) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/