The company I work for uses a graphic design system that probably no one has ever heard of called "Mecca" created by "Amgraf". Anyway, their software runs on FreeBSD and up until recently we've been chugging along on FreeBSD 8.2 (prior to that we were on 4.7 for many years). Obviously this is very very outdated and it's restricted what other programs we can make use of on those computers.
Towards that end we've been looking into updating to a current FreeBSD distribution (which mecca fortunately does support), the only snag is that our users have become accustomed to the TKDesk file manager which makes use of Miller Columns but it was removed from the FreeBSD ports tree in 2013.
Any other file manager currently available in the ports that I've had them try, they say is too inefficient to use due to the lack of the Miller Columns feature. It appears that the only other file manager currently available on FreeBSD that uses it is ranger which our users would find too complicated to use.
The only other currently developed/maintained file manager I can find that uses Miller Columns in the Unix world is "Pantheon Files", but the only portion of Pantheon that has been ported to FreeBSD thus far has been the terminal emulator.
It appears that there is a debian port of TKDesk that is still maintained and I have tried to evaluate what differences it has that allows it to still function while the latest FreeBSD port does not, but for the most part it is beyond my current knowledge.
Between the two options of getting TKDesk to work in the current FreeBSD environment or making a completely new port of Pantheon Files, it seems obvious from what research I've done that getting TKDesk working should much easier, but I haven't had much luck in my attempts. I would appreciate some advice from someone more well versed in FreeBSD porting that might help get me on the right track towards getting something working that suits their "needs".
TLDR; I would greatly appreciate any help in getting a graphical based file manager working in current versions of FreeBSD that utilizes Miller Columns.
Towards that end we've been looking into updating to a current FreeBSD distribution (which mecca fortunately does support), the only snag is that our users have become accustomed to the TKDesk file manager which makes use of Miller Columns but it was removed from the FreeBSD ports tree in 2013.
Any other file manager currently available in the ports that I've had them try, they say is too inefficient to use due to the lack of the Miller Columns feature. It appears that the only other file manager currently available on FreeBSD that uses it is ranger which our users would find too complicated to use.
The only other currently developed/maintained file manager I can find that uses Miller Columns in the Unix world is "Pantheon Files", but the only portion of Pantheon that has been ported to FreeBSD thus far has been the terminal emulator.
It appears that there is a debian port of TKDesk that is still maintained and I have tried to evaluate what differences it has that allows it to still function while the latest FreeBSD port does not, but for the most part it is beyond my current knowledge.
Between the two options of getting TKDesk to work in the current FreeBSD environment or making a completely new port of Pantheon Files, it seems obvious from what research I've done that getting TKDesk working should much easier, but I haven't had much luck in my attempts. I would appreciate some advice from someone more well versed in FreeBSD porting that might help get me on the right track towards getting something working that suits their "needs".
TLDR; I would greatly appreciate any help in getting a graphical based file manager working in current versions of FreeBSD that utilizes Miller Columns.