SONAR)))

A friendly, fuzzy find first, file manager for your terminal.

Features

• Fuzzy Find First
  • Navigate directories via fuzzy find
• Custom Keybinds
  • All UI actions (cmds) can be mapped to custom keys
• Multi-select operations
  • Copy, move, delete (etc) multiple files at a time
• Async file operations
  • No UI lockups when moving large files
• Responsive layout
  • Supports vertical and horizontal layouts with a custom breakpoint
• Optional bat integration
  • If you have bat installed, it will be used to preview files in the TUI
• Custom native shell commands
  • Supports an "alias-like" syntax for writing custom commands which can operate on your file multi-selection
• Image preview
  • Sixels in supported environments
  • Unicode half-blocks if not
• Discoverable commands and features
  • All commands can be found and launched via the TUI
  • No need to scour the docs
• Plain text configuration
  • All configuration files use a plain text format
  • No need to learn a new syntax

Beta

Warning

Sonar is currently in active development. Its ready to use right now but things might change before the 1.0 release.

Check it out

The best way to check out Sonar right now is to build it yourself with cargo.

Clone this repo

git clone git@github.com:matdombrock/sonar.git

Run it

cargo run --release

Install it

cargo install --path .

Tip

Ensure .cargo/bin in in your path.

export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"

Why would I use this? How is this better than ...

There are a lot of great terminal file browsers out there. The goal here is not to be the best file manager of all time (this is incidental), the goal is to make a file manager that works exactly the way I think it should.

Design Philosophy

• Simplicity is Power
  • By default, Sonar should be natural to use for those coming from a GUI file manager.
  • At the same time it should be highly configurable for power users who know exactly what they want.
• Searching First
  • We can type faster than we can hit the arrow keys repeatedly. Searching for your destination by typing its name is the fastest way to move through a file system.
  • Moving up and down a list of items should be delegated to the secondary way of navigating / selecting.
• Panes are Confusing
  • File browsers that use panes to show hierarchies are confusing.
  • Unless a directory is focused, show one directory at a time.

Others

If Sonar doesn't float your boat, check out these other awesome TUI file managers:

• XPLR (Rust)
• Yazi (Rust)
• Broot (Rust)
• Ranger (Python)
• FishFinder (fish)

Commands

Commands are how you interact with Sonar. Most useful commands have a default keybinding but they can be remapped and called manually as needed.

cmd-find         : Toggle the fuzzy command finder
cmd-list         : List all commands in the output window
cmd-list-dump    : Dump all commands to a file
cmd-win          : Toggle command window where you can type commands
config-clear     : Clear (delete) the configuration files
config-init      : Initialize the configuration files with defaults
cur-down         : Move selection cursor down
cur-up           : Move selection cursor up
dbg-prev-clear   : Clear the screen content. Some terminals may not refresh properly causing artifacts.
dir-back         : Go back to the most recent working directory
dir-reload       : Reload the current working directory
dir-up           : Go up to the parent directory
edit             : Open the focused file or directory in $EDITOR
enter            : Open/Edit/Run the item under the cursor
exit             : Exit the application
explode          : Find all files in subdirectories under the current directory
goto             : Go to a specified directory
hidden-toggle    : Toggle showing hidden files and directories
home             : Go to your home directory
input-clear      : Clear the current input/search
keybinds-show    : Show the currently loaded keybindings
log              : Show the application log
log-clear        : Clear the application log
menu-back        : Go back to previous menu
os-open          : Open the focused file or directory with the default OS application
output-hide      : Hide the output window
output-show      : Show the output window
output-toggle    : Toggle the output window
sec-down         : Scroll the secondary window down
sec-up           : Scroll the secondary window up
sel              : Toggle selection of the item under the cursor
sel-clear        : Clear the current selection of files and directories
sel-clip         : Copy the current selection of file and diretory paths to clipboard
copy             : Copy the current selection of files and directories to the current directory
delete           : Delete all currently selected files and directories
move             : Move (not copy) the currently selected files and directories to the current directory
save             : Save the current selection of files and directories to file
show             : Show the current selection of files and directories in the output window
shell            : Run a quick shell command in the current directory
shell-full       : Run a full shell in the current directory

Configuration

Keybinds

Keybinds can be defined in the keybinds.txt file in your config directory. Any command can be mapped to a keybind. Defining ANY custom keybinds will cause the app to completely ignore the default keybinds.

The default keybinds are as follows:

#
# Default keybinds
#

exit           esc
exit           ctrl-q
home           alt-g
cur-up         up
cur-up         ctrl-k
cur-down       down
cur-down       ctrl-j
sel            tab
dir-up         ctrl-h
dir-back       ctrl-u
explode        ctrl-x
edit           ctrl-e
goto           ctrl-g
enter          enter
enter          ctrl-l
cmd-win        ctrl-w
cmd-find       ctrl-t 
cmd-list       ctrl-i
sec-up         alt-k
sec-up         ctrl-up
sec-down       alt-j
sec-down       ctrl-down
input-clear    ctrl-z
shell          ctrl-s
os-open        ctrl-o
hidden-toggle  alt-h

Colors

While the actual color values used in the TUI are decided by your terminal theme, you can define which colors get used for which elements in your colors.txt file. Setting custom colors here will override the default colors but any element which does not have a custom color set will fall back to the default.

#
# Default colors
#

name           default
search_border  green
preview_border yellow
listing_border blue
file           green
dir            blue
command        cyan
executable     lightred
shortcut       yellow
image          lightmagenta
header         lightblue
info           yellow
tip            green
warning        yellow
error          red
ok             green
hi             white
dim            gray
misc           white

General Configuration

General config options are stored in the config.txt file. These options control the behavior of Sonar. Options which are not set here fall back to the default values.

#
# Default configuration
#

# Command to run when you 'enter' on a file/directory
cmd_on_enter     edit

# How many items to show in a list - 0 = no limit
list_limit       100

# How many items can be searched at once - 0 = no limit
find_limit       0

# How many lines to preview - 0 = no limit
preview_limit    100

# Whether to force sixel image rendering (if terminal supports it)
force_sixel      false

# Maximum image width in characters
max_image_width  80

# Responsive breakpoint in characters
responsive_break 96

# Input polling interval in milliseconds
# Higher value = lower CPU usage, lower value = more responsive input
input_poll       10

# Whether to show hidden files by default
# show_hidden    true

Custom Shell Commands

It's possible to define custom shell commands which can be launched from the TUI cmd-finder. These shell commands can harness your file/directory multi-selection.

Tip

It's also possible to run native shell commands manually with the shell command.

#
# Default shell commands
#

# A simple command
ls -la
# Ask for input (open prompt window)
ls {ASK}
# Echo the first selected file/directory
echo $1
# Create a zip archive of all selected files/directories
zip -r archive.zip $...