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Tutorial
Configuration
The configuration file should be located in ~/.config/lf/lfrc.
A sample configuration file can be found here.
Prefixes
The following command prefixes are used by lf:
: read (default)
$ read-shell
! read-shell-wait
& read-shell-async
/ search
? search-back
The same evaluator is used for the command line and the configuration file. The difference is that prefixes are not necessary in the command line. Instead different modes are provided to read corresponding commands. Note that by default these modes are mapped to the prefix keys above.
Syntax
Characters from # to \n are comments and ignored.
There are three special commands for configuration.
set is used to set an option which could be:
- bool (e.g.
set hidden,set nohidden,set hidden!) - int (e.g.
set scrolloff 10) - string (e.g.
set sortby time)
map is used to bind a key to a command which could be:
- built-in command (e.g.
map gh cd ~) - custom command (e.g.
map dD trash) - shell command (e.g.
map i $less "$f",map u !du -h . | less)
cmd is used to define a custom command.
If there is no prefix then : is assumed.
An explicit : could be provided to group statements until a \n occurs.
This is especially useful for map and cmd commands.
If you need multiline you can wrap statements in {{ and }} after the proper prefix.
Yank/Delete/Paste
lf uses the underlying cp and mv shell commands for file operations.
For this purpose, when you yank (i.e. copy) a file, it doesn't actually copy the file on the disk, but only records its name to memory.
The actual file operation takes place when you do the paste in which case the cp command is used.
Similarly the mv command is used for delete (i.e. cut or kill) followed by paste.
These traditional names (e.g. yank and delete) are picked instead of the other common convention (e.g. copy and cut) to resemble the default keybinds for these operations.
Custom Commands
To wrap up let us write a shell command to move selected file(s) to trash.
A first attempt to write such a command may look like this:
cmd trash ${{
mkdir -p ~/.trash
if [ -z $fs ]; then
mv --backup=numbered "$f" $HOME/.trash
else
IFS=':'; mv --backup=numbered $fs $HOME/.trash
fi
}}
We check $fs to see if there are any marked files.
Otherwise we just delete the current file.
Since this is such a common pattern, a separate $fx variable is provided.
We can use this variable to get rid of the conditional.
cmd trash ${{
mkdir -p ~/.trash
IFS=':'; mv --backup=numbered $fx $HOME/.trash
}}
The trash directory is checked each time the command is executed. We can move it outside of the command so it would only run once at startup.
${{ mkdir -p ~/.trash }}
cmd trash ${{ IFS=':'; mv --backup=numbered $fx $HOME/.trash }}
Since these are one liners, we can drop {{ and }}.
$mkdir -p ~/.trash
cmd trash $IFS=':'; mv --backup=numbered $fx $HOME/.trash
Finally note that we set IFS variable accordingly in the command.
Instead we could use the ifs option to set it for all commands (e.g. set ifs ':').
This could be especially useful for interactive use (e.g. rm $fs would simply work).
This option is not set by default as things may behave unexpectedly at other places.
Opening Files
You can use open-file command to open a file.
This is a special command called by open when the current file is not a directory.
Normally a user maps the open command to a key (default l) and customize open-file command as desired.
You can define it just as you would define any other command.
cmd open-file $IFS=':'; vim $fx
It is possible to use different command types.
cmd open-file &xdg-open "$f"
You may want to use either file extensions or mime types with file.
cmd open-file ${{
case $(file --mime-type "$f" -b) in
text/*) IFS=':'; vim $fx;;
*) IFS=':'; for f in $fx; do xdg-open "$f" &> /dev/null & done;;
esac
}}
lf does not come bundled with a file opener.
Below are a few different file openers you can use.
- xdg-utils (executable name is
xdg-open) - libfile-mimeinfo-perl (executable name is
mimeopen) - rifle (ranger's default file opener)
- mimeo