On my Linux systems, I use ls and cd all the time. Sure, use can use some variations of those commands, like ll on Debian systems, which does ls -alF --color=auto (for GNU Coreutils), and defining your own functions that perform a cd command to your favorite locations. You could even define your own "cd then ls" command.
Even then, my main issue is about navigation. I would often navigate to some location by examining the available directories at one location, and then changing my directory there, incrementally, until I get to the full path I desired. While this can be done with a combination of ls and cd commands, some shells like BASH support path completion for any command-line argument: Pressing TAB completes the path item's name, and if ambiguous (up to a point in the item name), a second press of TAB shows the available disambiguation. This process of path completion can be annoying: It is case sensitive, requires knowing the path element names by prefix, and each ambiguous completion results in a cacophony of "bell" sounds (or some stroboscopic "visual bell").
Surely there has to be a better way.
fzffzf is a "fuzzy finder" that can search for files in real time as you type part of their paths. It can also be used for looking for directories, or to search matching lines from any input.
In some shells like BASH, fzf can add a few useful keyboard shortcuts. alt-c is a replacement for cd. control-t can be used to insert one or more paths that were found using fzf on the current command-line. Due to its support for searching in any input text, control-r replaces BASH's built-in history search with fuzzy search, which is incredibly useful if you can't exactly remember a command from your command history.
fzf also supports showing a preview pane for the currently selected entry. For example, this can be used to show the output of the ls command of the selected directory when you use alt-c:
export FZF_ALT_C_OPTS="--preview 'ls {}'"
fzf can be used with any other process' output. For example, fzf-git, from the same author, supports fuzzy searching for Git objects, like branch names or file paths known to Git, and inserts the result on the command-line.
So, while fzf helps with finding specific files, it isn't a replacement for file system navigation. You still need to display the files in the current directory, and performing file operation across multiple directories lacks visualization.
There has been file managers in a command-line environments for a long time. For DOS there were quite a few text-based graphical file managers, like Midnight Commander or DOS Shell.
A more modern file manager I use is n3, named nnn on the command-line. It differs from what are called "orthodox" file managers, in that it displays only one directory at a time, and generally avoids using "graphical" display. It keeps track of up to 4 different contexts, which are either a directory or a list of files that was output by another process or from its extensive support for plugins.
Navigation in n3 is as simple as using the arrow keys, and it supports changing the current directory on exit. Its interface is light, but it displays a handy keyboard shortcut reference when pressing ?.
It can also be used as a "file picker" using the -p option, acting in a way as an alternative to fzf.
Published on September 29, 2024 at 11:15 EDT
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