CLI tools for quickly exploring the directory structure.

They were tested to work on macOS and Ubuntu in ZSH.

A script that piggy bags on the output of ls by adding colors on top of it. It allows to gray out unimportant files and to associate some colors with certain file extensions.

You can customize the colors by editing the color_definitions.py file

Additionally, if you are not on macOS, you would have to modify the ls command as it has different parameters depending on the system.

To do so, open the dir_explorer/list_files.py file and modify the ls variable to a command that should be used as a basis. The command should have the flags necessary to output the files in the long format.

This tool does not have any dependencies.

The only think you would want to do is to add this to your .bashrc/.zshrc file:

alias l="python3 ~/path/to/dir_explorer/dir_explorer/list_files.py"

Additionally, you could customize the ls variable in dir_explorer/list_files.py to customize the default arguments that get passed to the ls command. By default, it calls ls command on Linux and gls on macOS.

Remember to change ~/path/to/dir_explorer/ to an actual path.

Then you can just press l in the terminal, hit ENTER, and look in awe at all the colors!

And just like with regular ls command, you can provide a directory name as the second parameter. You can even use a wildcard or multiple directories. Example:

l ~/Downloads/*.png ~/Documents/

Or display files recursively:

l -R ~/Downloads

list_view.py aims to provide an experience similar to Finder's list view right in your terminal. It is most useful for when you need to explore several directories and quickly move between levels as you search for the thing you are looking for.

You can customize the colors by editing the color_definitions.py file.

Additionally, you can set the environmental variable EDITOR to a CLI editor you want to use for opening text files

Create a virtual environment:

python -m venv venv

If you choose to omit the creation of virtual environment, then you would have to change the location of python executable in dir_explorer/list_view.

Run pip install:

./venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

Then, add the f bash function that is defined in ./dir_explorer/list_view to your ~/.zshrc. Alternativelly, you can source that file directly.

Don't forget to change the script_dir variable to the location of ./dir_explorer/list_view

Then you can call f or f <some path> to display a directory in a list view.

Controls:

• Up / Down Arrow - navigate Up / Down
• Left / Right Arrow - open parent / child directory

Instead of the arrow keys, you can also use WSAD or HJKL.

Next, you can cd to the selected directory by pressing the Space key.

For opening files, you can use E to open it in the text editor, O for opening it in the default application, or Space bar to use the best application for that file type.

Additionally, macOS users can press the P key to quickly preview the file or directory.

After that, feel free to modify the dir_explorer/color_definitions.py as you see fit. That file defines the colors to use for each file type.

For color codes in modern terminals, see this nice article.

The color_definitions.py file contains a dictionary color_definitions that associates a human-friendly label with one of the 255 colors.

Then, in known_file_extensions, file extensions are assigned a certain color.

Also, for extensions like .zshrc, .eslitrc and other rc files, there is a useful known_file_extension_endings dictionary that defines colors for files whose extensions end with a given string. Finally, there is a known_file_names dictionary for when you need to associate an entire file name with a color.