Pavel Chuchuva

If you try to open Office 2007 document (.docx or .xlsx) in Far Manager it will simply open them as a ZIP archive. Clearly, that’s not what you want. Here’s how to fix it:

1. Go to Commands › File association.
2. Create a new association by pressing Ins.
3. Enter *.doc;*.docx;*.xlsx;*.pptx as a mask.
4. Enter @"!.!" as Execute command (used for Enter).

You can still open docx file as an archive by pressing Ctrl+PgDn.

This is a nice trick: in Far Manager, invoke drive menu by pressing Alt+F1:

Select CD-ROM and press Delete. CD/DVD will get ejected.

You can also press Del key on network drives to unmap them.

In Far Manager 1.70 you could browse folders with mouse wheel. Rotating wheel would scroll up and down. Middle-click would open a folder. But version 2.0 disables middle-click. Boo! Never take away features from users.

Fortunately it’s very easy to restore this functionality:

1. Launch [C:\Program Files\Far2\Addons\Macros\MiddleClickAsEnter.reg]. If you don’t have this folder re-install Far and add Addons » Macros feature.
2. Restart Far Manager.

Freshly installed Far Manager looks um… small:

Here’s how to make its window bigger:

1. Right-click on the window title, select Properties
2. Switch to Font tab
3. Select a bigger font. I prefer raster font 10 x 18.
4. (optional) Switch to Layout tab and change window size there. I leave it as 80 x 25.

Sometimes I need to do something with file that Far Manager can’t help me with. Good example is changing file permissions. In these cases Windows Explorer context menu comes handy:

If you want context menu in Far Manager you need EMenu plugin. Fortunately, it is included with Far by default. Here’s how to set it up:

1. Execute [C:\Program Files\Far\Plugins\EMenu\Hotkey.reg]
2. Restart Far Manager
3. Open Options menu, then Plugins configuration. Select EMenu in the list.
4. Uncheck “Show message after execution”.

Now Menu key should invoke context menu. Nice trick is to select Send To – Mail Recipient to quickly open new email with the file attached.

Let’s say you use Far Manager and want to launch PowerShell script. With default installation pressing Enter on PowerShell script in Far Manager will open the script in Notepad. Not very helpful.

Here’s how to configure Far Manager to launch PowerShell script by pressing Enter key:

1. Open Commands menu, select File associations.
2. Press Ins key to add new association.
3. Enter *.ps1 as file mask.
4. Enter the following as execute command:

   powershell.exe "&'.\!.!'"

Bonus: how to change colour of PowerShell scripts to green:

1. Open Options menu, select Files highlighting.
2. Locate *.exe,*.com,*.bat entry, press Enter to edit.
3. Add *.ps1 to the list, select Ok to save.

See also: Running Windows PowerShell Scripts

Far Manager is console-based file manager. I like it very much. Here’s how I configure it to get the maximum out of it:

1. Set raster font, 10 x 18. Set window size 80 x 26. Turn off selection with mouse (QuickEdit mode).
2. Turn on “Clear R/O attribute from CD files”: go to Options | System Settings. I never need files to be read-only when I copy them from CD or DVD to hard drive.
3. Turn on displaying hidden ($) shares: Options | Plugins configuration | Network browser | Show hidden shares. Now I can type net:computername and see C$, D$, etc.
4. Options | Confirmations. Turn off confirmations for:
   • Delete non-empty folders
   • Exit
5. Copy these command line archivers to C:\Program Files\Far folder:
   • pkzipc.exe
   • rar.exe
   • MsCab.exe
   • tar.exe

   Unfortunately Far Manager is not bundled with any archiver so you need to get them manually, from various web sites. Update: see below.

6. Options | Panel Settings | turn on “Select folders”. This allows using NumPad Star to select folders.
7. Go to Options | Interface Settings. Turn off “Clock in panels”. I already have a clock in lower right corner. There is no need for extra clock.Turn on “Show total copy progress indicator”. Otherwise I have absolutely no clue when operation is going to finish when I have lots of files to copy.
8. Go to Options | Editor Settings. Check “Del removes blocks”. Set tab size to 3. Default 8 is way to much.
9. Switch to Wide Mode. Press Left Ctrl + 4. I prefer this mode because I can see long file names and file sizes. Go to Options | File panel modes | Wide mode. Set Column Types to N,SC and Status line column types to NR,SC,D,T. This adds comma to file sizes:
   
10. Install EMenu plugin. Go to C:\Program Files\Far\Plugins\EMenu folder and execute Hotkey.reg. Now I can press Context Menu key to get Explorer menu for selected file or folder.
11. Can you read gray text on green background? I can’t.
    
    Go to Options | Colors | Dialogs | Unchanged text input. Set Foreground to black.

Update: Download pkzipc.exe, Rar.exe, MsCab.exe, gzip32.exe and tar.exe:

Extract far_archivers.zip to C:\Program Files\Far folder.