tere - a faster alternative to cd + ls

tere is a terminal file explorer. It is a faster alternative to using cd and ls to browse folders in your terminal. It only really does one thing: it allows you to navigate to a folder efficiently using a TUI, and then prints the path to that folder when you exit.

Note that tere is not a file manager, it can only be used to browse folders, not to create, rename or delete them.

tere aims to be minimal and simple. It should be obvious how to use it. Navigating the file system should be efficient and require as few keystrokes as possible. A great source of inspiration for tere is the "type-ahead search" functionality found in many GUI file managers.

"Tere" means "hello" in Estonian. It also feels nice to type.

Setup

To start using tere, follow these steps:

Download the latest release. If you have the Rust toolchain installed, you can also install from source by running cargo install tere.

Configure your shell to cd to the folder which tere prints when it exits. It has to be usually done using a function or alias, since a subprocess cannot change the working directory of the parent.

For bash/zsh, put this in your .bashrc or .zshrc:

tere() {
    local result=$(/path/to/tere "$@")
    [ -n "$result" ] && cd -- "$result"
}

For xonsh v0.10 or newer, put this in your .xonshrc:

def _tere(args):
    result = $(/path/to/tere @(args)).strip()
    if result:
        cd @(result)

aliases["tere"] = _tere

For fish, put this in your .config.fish:

function tere
    set --local result (/path/to/tere $argv)
    [ -n "$result" ] && cd -- "$result"
end

For powershell core, put this in your $PROFILE:

    function Invoke-Tere() {
        $tere_dir = '/path/to/tere'
        if ($isWindows) {
            $tere_path = Join-Path $tere_dir 'tere.exe'
        }
        else {
            $tere_path = Join-Path $tere_dir 'tere'
        }
        $result = . $tere_path
        if ($result) {
            Set-Location $result
        }
    }
    Set-Alias tere Invoke-Tere

If instructions for your shell are missing, feel free to send a pull request that includes them!

That's it. The next time you open a new shell, the command tere should work (you can also of course call the shell function/alias whatever you like). The above shell configuration also acts as a config file for tere, just add the options you want (see tere --help).

Supported platforms

Currently, tere is tested on and built for Ubuntu. On Mac, it should be enough to compile the program yourself and the above bash/zsh shell configuration should work out of the box. Windows should also in principle work (the TUI is rendered using a cross-platform library), you just has to figure out the correct shell configuration. Pull requests welcome!

Hacking

To compile tere from source, follow the standard procedure:

Install the Rust toolchain
git clone [email protected]:mgunyho/tere.git
cd tere
Run cargo build (--release for the release version)

This will place the tere in the folder target/debug or target/release if you used --release.

User guide

You can navigate folders in tere by using the arrow keys and by typing to search. Basic navigation works by moving the cursor up or down, and pressing Enter or the right arrow → to enter the highlighted folder. You can move to the parent folder by pressing Enter on the parent folder item .., or with the left arrow ←. Below is a full list of keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts

tere has the following keyboard shortcuts:

Action	Shortcut(s)
Move cursor up	`↑` or `Alt`+`k`
Move cursor down	`↓` or `Alt`+`j`
Enter directory	`Enter` or `→` or `Alt`+`↓` or `Alt`+`l` or if not searching, `Space`
Go to parent directory	`←` or `Alt`+`↑` or `Alt`+`h` or if not searching, `Backspace` or `-`
Exit `tere`	`Esc` or `Alt`+`q`
Exit `tere` without changing directory	`Ctrl`+`c`
Go to home directory	`~` or `Ctrl`+`Home` or `Ctrl`+`Alt`+`h`
Go to root directory	`/` or `Alt`+`r`
Refresh current directory	`Ctrl`+`r`
Move cursor up by one screen	`Page Up` or `Ctrl`+`u` or `Alt`+`u`
Move cursor down by one screen	`Page Down` or `Ctrl`+`d` or `Alt`+`d`
Move cursor to the top	`Home` or `Alt`+`g`
Move cursor to the bottom	`End` or `Alt`+`Shift`+`g`
Change case sensitivity mode	`Alt`+`c`
Change gap search mode	`Ctrl`+`f`
Show help screen	`?`

Some of the shortcuts starting with Alt should be familiar to Vim users.

Searching

To search for an item in the current folder, just type some letters. tere will incrementally highlight all folders and files that match the search query.

While searching, moving the cursor up or down jumps between only the items that match the search. The search query, as well as the number of matching items is shown at the bottom of the screen.

If only one folder matches your current search, tere will highlight it, and change the working directory to that folder. This way you can navigate folders very quickly.

To stop searching, press Esc or erase all search characters by pressing Backspace.

By default, the searching uses "smart case", meaning that if the query contains only lowercase letters, case is ignored, but if there are uppercase letters, the search is case sensitive. This can be changed with the --ignore-case and --case-sensitive options, or with the keyboard shortcut Alt+c while tere is running.

In addition, in the default search mode, "gap search" is enabled. This means that the search query matches any folder or file name that contains the searched characters, even if there are other characters between them. For example, searching for dt would match both DeskTop and DocumenTs. This behavior can be changed with the --gap-search-anywhere and --no-gap-search options, or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+f while tere is running. See the output of the --help option for further details.

Although tere is mainly keyboard-focused, it is also possible to navigate using the mouse. To maximize compatibility, mouse support is off by default, and has to be enabled with the option --mouse=on. With the mouse enabled, you can change to a folder by clicking on it, and move to the parent folder by right-clicking.

CLI options

You can adjust the behavior of tere by passing the following CLI options to it:

--help or -h: Print a short help and all CLI options. Note that the output goes to stderr, to not interfere with cd ing in the shell functions defined during the setup.
--version or -V: Print the version of tere. This also goes to stderr.
--filter-search or -f / --no-filter-search or -F: If --filter-search is set, show only items that match the current search query in the listing. Otherwise all items are shown in the listing while searching (this is the default behavior).
--folders-only or -d / --no-folders-only or -D: With --folders-only, don't show files but only folders (and symlinks pointing to folders) in the listing.
--smart-case or -S / --ignore-case or -i / --case-sensitive or -s: Set the case sensitivity mode. The default mode is smart case, which is case insensitive if the query contains only lowercase letters and case sensitive otherwise.
--gap-search or -g / --gap-search-anywhere or -G / --no-gap-search or -n: Configure whether to allow matches with gaps in them (see above).
--autocd-timeout - If the current search matches only one folder, automatically change to that folder after this many milliseconds. Can also be set to off, which disables this behaviour.
--history-file: To make browsing more convenient, tere saves a history of folders you have visited to this file in JSON format. It should be an absolute path. Defaults to $CACHE_DIR/tere/history.json, where $CACHE_DIR is $XDG_CACHE_HOME or ~/.cache. Set to the empty string '' to disable saving the history. Note that the history reveals parts of your folder structure if it can be read by someone else.
--mouse=on or --mouse=off: Enable or disable navigating with the mouse. If enabled, you can left-click to enter folders and right-click to go to the parent folder. Off by default.

Some options have two or more versions that override each other (for example --folders-only and --no-folders-only). For such options, whichever is passed last wins. This way, you can have one option as the default in your shell's rc file, but you can sometimes manually override that option when running tere.

Similar projects

The idea of tere is by no means unique. There are actually quite a few CLI applications that attempt to make folder navigation faster. Below is a non-exhaustive list of such programs. The purpose of this section is to justify the existence of tere by showing how it is different from all these applications in subtle but important ways.

If there is a program that should be mentioned here, feel free to open an issue or pull request about it!

Terminal file browsers

These programs are designed for basically the same task as tere: navigate to a folder in the terminal and then cd to it.

Broot - Broot is more focused on browsing large directories, and has a more complex UI than tere.
xplr - Lots of features, fully customizable. Not entirely focused on navigation, has file management features. Navigation by searching requires jumping between typing and pressing arrow keys.
deer - zsh only, searching requires extra keystrokes.
cdir - Basically exactly the same idea as tere, but in written in Python. Doesn't have Vim-like keyboard navigation, and it's not a standalone binary.
llama - Very similar to tere, written in Go.
sdn - Also very similar to tere, even in terms of the UI as well. Type-ahead search mode is not the default, searching requires a couple of extra keystrokes.

These programs have a very similar goal as tere, to speed up filesystem navigation. However, these kinds of programs are not well suited for exploration, as they require that you visit a folder before you can jump to it. They also differ from tere in philosophy; tere aims to be deterministic, while the results of a fuzzy match or "frecency"-based query vary depending on your previous queries.

Terminal file managers

There are quite a few terminal file managers, and they can often be used in the same way as tere, for example using the --choosedir option of ranger. However, they have a huge number of other features compared to tere, which usually leads to a more complex UI and a higher learning curve. File managers are also not entirely focused on navigation, and therefore often require extra keystrokes to search and navigate folders. File management is not in the scope of tere, so these programs are not directly comparable to it.

Other similar programs

noice - Very similar to tere, but there is no option to print the current directory on exit. Filtering/searching directory contents requires two extra keystrokes.
twilight commander - Main goal seems to be a folder tree browser embedded in other apps. No search. No option to go above the initial working directory.

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