XFiles: a X11 File Manager
             <https://github.com/phillbush/xfiles>

Features: • Icons representing directory entries. • Icon view only (list/culumn/tree/etc view is not and will not be implemented). • Uncluttered interface (no toolbar, sidebar, etc but grid of icons). • Mouse interaction with drag-and-drop and selection actions. • Drag-and-drop within the same XFiles window. • Drag-and-drop between two XFiles windows. • Drag-and-drop between an XFiles window and another application. • Scroller widget (activated on middle mouse button) replacing scrollbars. • XEmbed support, to incorporate other application's windows as widgets (for example, dmenu can be used as an address bar). • File operations are delegated to a user-written script (xfilesctl). • Thumbnail (64x64 PPM image) generation delegated to a script (xfilesthumb). • Appearance (like colors and font) customizable by X resources.

See ./demo.png for a illustration of XFiles in action.

§ INSTALLATION

Build XFiles with “make”. Copy the built binary file ./xfiles into your system's $PATH. Optionally, copy the manual file ./xfiles.1 in your system's $MANPATH. Optionally, copy the scripts in ./examples/ in your system's $PATH.

Dependencies: • C99 compiler, for building. • POSIX make, for building. • Mandoc, for the manual. • POSIX C standard library and headers. • X11 libraries and headers (Xlib, Xcursor, Xext, Xft, Xpm, Xrender). • Fontconfig library and headers. • Pthreads library and headers. • (NOTE: The xfilesctl and xfilesthumb scripts may depend on other programs).

§ QUICK-START

Context menu. XFiles has no context menu; but it invokes “xfilesctl” at right-click. You can make a xfilesctl script open xmenu(1) or other pop-up menu program. On right-click, it is invoked as follows (%s is the paths to selected files):

xfilesctl menu %s

Address bar. XFiles has no address bar; but it invokes “xfilesctl” at Ctrl+key presses. You can make a xfilesctl script open dmenu(1) or other prompt program. On, say, Ctrl+L, it is invoked as follows (%s is the paths to selected files):

xfilesctl ^L %s

File operations. XFiles does no file operation; but it invokes “xfilesctl” at icon manipulation. You can make a xfilesctl script call cp(1) or other command on a drop action. On file dropping, it is invoked as follows (%s is the path to selected files):

xfilesctl drop-ask %s

Thumbnails. XFiles does not generate thumbnails; but it invokes “xfilesthumb” to do so. Thumbnails must be 64x64 pixels in size, and must be in the PPM format. You can make a xfilesthumb script call pdftoppm(1) to create a pdf thumbnail. The xfilesthumb script is invoked as follows:

xfilesthumb /path/to/file /path/to/miniature.ppm

Examples. See the ./examples/ directories for script and configuration examples: • ./examples/xfilesctl (example controller script). • ./examples/xfilesthumb (example thumbnailer script). • ./examples/Xresources (example X resources database).

Read the manual at ./xfiles.1 for more information on usage.

§ CONTRIBUTING

If possible, send feedback (positive or negative) via email or issue tracker. If possible, report bugs (possibly with a fix) via email or issue tracker.

Feature requests and patches adding new features are welcome. But it is ultimately up to author's discretion to approve them or not.

Keep in mind that this is a personal project and a work in progress.

Read ./TODO for a list of known bugs and features intended to be added.

§ AUTHOR

By Lucas de Sena © 2021-2024.

Code and manual distributed under the MIT/X license. Icons are distributed under CC0/Public Domain. See ./LICENSE for more information.