Thanks for your replies.
Can it be done?
Yes, of course it can be done using Lazarus. But Lazarus cannot use Delphi code directly, some code modifications are needed.
Patience and efforts are needed.
Superb! Not an easy task for a beginner no doubt!
Patience isn't the problem, I need a focus for my efforts. Without a reason to learn, something to practice on, the motivation dwindles.
But if (or when) you get stuck, you'll get plenty of help on the forum.
Definitely when!
And thanks, I'm going to need plenties!
It can be your entire life programming...
Understood. Hopefully this is something I can get stuck into.
For some reason most (if not all) decent file managers are written in Pascal: TotalCommander, FreeCommander, Double Commander.
Double Commander is written in Lazarus and is open source, but contributing to it will be hard for a beginner, even getting it compiled is not so trivial.
But please try, it needs to be improved!
I've tried every known old and new file manager that I have managed to find, all have bugs, quirks, issues that need sorting.
File commanders aren't my cup of tea really. I prefer the traditional file manager, but with some features that are hard to find that are quite simple in practise but few managers actually employ.
The best in my opinion for what I want are obviously Cubic as the top choice, then XYplorer, Tablacus and Q-Dir. My needs in this area are quite basic compared to the features offered by most explorers, but some features I've gotso used to it's hard to part with them, hence I am still using Cubic that's 10 years out of date!
My hope is to fix bugs, add some features and maybe, if possible create a 64bit version. Though many components are 32bit only and older than Cubic, so these may need to be written from scratch.