Vim vs Directory Opus

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs.

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH.

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection.

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency.
Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while.

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches.

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand.

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag.

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view.

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example.

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more.

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too.

And will be supported for many years to come.

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes.

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh.

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way.

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each.
Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors.
Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc.
Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell.
Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code.
Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim.

All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient!

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient.

Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again.

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type.

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm.

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze.

It is called "registers".

Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex.

Allows customizing toolbars and keyboard hotkeys. Has a full scripting interface that allows in-depth customization options.

Unique Explorer Replacement mode provides a full replacement for Windows Explorer.

Allows batch renaming, viewing and editing file metadata.

This is done with Directory Opus' inbuilt label and its Status system.

Supports SFTP (Secure FTP via SSH, port 22)
Also supports FTP via SSL (port 990) and FTP via with TLS.
Caution: FTP is a paid additive to the product although in relative terms it's not too expensive (around $12).

Supports archive formats like Zip, 7Zip and RAR.

Can easily synchronize files and helps the user in finding and deleting duplicates.

Directory Opus allows users to customize the status bar to display helpful information based on several different factors, including file counts, types, disk space, and others. The status bar can also be customized separately for dual displays.

Available in both 32 and 64 bit versions.

Directory Opus has tabs for each view, which are customizable in size, appearance, functionality, etc.

Directory Opus allows users to create custom filters that can be saved and recalled as needed.

The scripting capabilities of DirectoryOpus extend from version to version. You can do a whole lot of unheard stuff with that.

Custom columns, custom commands, handling events etc. just to name a few things. It even has a GUI editor to allow for custom interfaces for your file management and scripting tasks. Even though mastering it is not easy in the beginning, it's worth it in the long run.

From powerful RegEx renaming to batch macro renaming, Directory Opus can compete with any third party renaming tool.

You can launch via a toolbar button or user definable custom context menu items.

Image marking adds the images you select to a different file, making it easy to sort through a large number of them.

The Directory Opus community has created everything from dark themes to themes emulating other applications.

Directory Opus includes 8 standard layouts, including Commander, Dual Horizontal, Dual Vertical, Explorer, Filmstrip, Images, Metadata and Single. In addition, users can create and save their own layouts to suit specific needs and file processes.

Directory Opus includes a comprehensive configuration backup and restore feature. Users can backup their customized configuration at any time and restore a previous configuration as needed.

Directory Opus includes a powerful independent image viewer with configurable toolbar, menus and hotkeys.

Directory Opus allows users to sort files as they want in manual sorting mode.

Directory Opus allows the user to use a single tree or dual independent trees with the dual file display.

Directory Opus has an option to include relative size and date graphs. These can be displayed independently, in their own columns, or nested behind the size and date columns respectively. They can also be toggled on and off with a simple button as needed.

Directory Opus offers an extension of standard color labeling in the form of status graphics that can be shown as an additional column in the file display. Standard graphics include "Checked" and "Flagged." Users can also create and use customized status labels.

Directory Opus supports both 4K and 5K monitors.

Directory Opus includes integrated image conversion functionality, allowing users to convert images to different formats, rotate and flip images, and resize images. Functionality can be used on a single image or large batch of images.

Directory Opus includes over 150 standard columns in various groups, ranging from "Name and Path" to "Metadata." In addition, users can create custom columns using a script.

This applies to both local and network drives.

Directory Opus users can use vertical tabs instead of horizontal tabs, if desired.

Directory Opus works with the Everything search program. A custom-built script allows users to conduct searches and view results within the Directory Opus file display.

The viewer in Directory Opus supports a huge array of file extensions (more can be added as plugins).
It is even able to show webpages in the viewer, when you select .url or .html files.

The customer support is very good.

Directory Opus has native support for Listary, allowing users to move even more quickly between directories and perform searches.

Lets you write scripts that have their own user interface with buttons, lists, checkboxes, text fields, etc.

Directory Opus offers thousands of user preferences. To help users find the preference they want, Directory Opus offers a search function within the Preferences dialog that identifies and highlights specific preferences associated with the user's search term.

Directory Opus supports TeraCopy.

Directory Opus is able to sync your photos with Flickr.
You can customize which file collections to sync, and the save location for each file collection

Script functions can be written in WSL Script, DOS Batch Mode, VBScript, JScript or directly calling Opus or External applications. /mnt/c paths understood by path fields. WSL mode in Find As You Type (FAYT). Copy path names in WSL format or Windows format.

Since it makes your folder structure rather transparent and allows to easy checks through dual tabbed layout, it helps you to not delete files wrongly.

More often than not, developers reply within minutes (even seconds) on their great forum. Never seen anything like it before.

Ways for sound designers to play and stop audio files for fast previewing.

Directory Opus gets updates all the time -- fixes, significant improvements and often new features are released multiple times a month. Improvement and feature requests by users are taken in consideration and you can often find your bug report resolved or improvement request fulfilled in one of the beta versions that follow soon.