Using the command prompt

AB Commander contains the command prompt area at the very bottom of its window that is a convenient tool for running programs that accept command-line switches:

To use the command prompt, first switch the input focus to it (by clicking on the command prompt with the mouse or by pressing the Shift+Esc key combination). Then enter the command you would like to run. Finally, press the Enter key (or click on the Execute button in the status bar), and the command you have entered will be passed to the program for execution.

While constructing the command to execute, you may find it useful to check the commands on the Prompt menu. This menu lets you insert various name and path components of the currently selected object into the command prompt, and thus helps you avoid unnecessary typing. For example, instead of manually typing in the name of a file in the command prompt, you may simply select the file in the panel, and press Ctrl+Ins. AB Commander will type the name of the file into the command prompt for you!

Example

You may learn from the Windows documentation that if you run Windows Notepad with the command line switch /p followed by the name of a file, then Notepad will send the file to the default printer for printing. You can use this property of Windows Notepad to quickly print out text files, without actually opening them. For example, suppose you want to quickly print out a text file named Letter.txt. To do that, type the following into the command prompt:

notepad /p

Now select the file Letter.txt and press Ctrl+Ins: the file name will be added to the command line:

notepad /p Letter.txt

Now press Enter and the file Letter.txt should be printed out!

Notes

Instead of pressing the Ctrl+Ins keys, you can also drag the files from the panels with the mouse and drop them on the command prompt. If you drag-and-drop with the right mouse button, a menu is shown that lets you select the form of the file name or path you want to insert into the command prompt.

While entering the command into the command prompt, you can still use the Tab key to change the active panel, and also the Ctrl+Up Arrow / Ctrl+Down Arrow keys to move the current selection in the active panel.

When executing the command, AB Commander imitates the behavior of the MS-DOS command prompt by setting up the current drive and current directory to match the folder that is currently displayed in the active panel. This lets you avoid typing the names of the files and folders when entering commands into the command prompt. In addition, unless you turned off the Expand drive letters option, you can refer to the current folders on other drives using just the drive specifications (that is, the drive letter followed by a semicolon). For example, if the last visited folder on the drive D: was D:\Temp, and the command prompt contains the text:

notepad /p d:Letter.txt

then the drive specification d: will be replaced with D:\Temp\, and the actual command executed by AB Commander would be:

notepad /p D:\Temp\Letter.txt

no matter which folders are currently displayed by the panels.

Can a command be started "As Administrator" ?

Yes: press the CTRL and SHIFT keys simultaneously while pressing ENTER or clicking on the Execute button, and the command will start elevated (or "As Administrator").