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Diffstat (limited to 'README.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 34 |
1 files changed, 18 insertions, 16 deletions
@@ -6,24 +6,23 @@ - Highly interoperable with unix pipelines - Highly customizable and hackable - Without any build dependencies other than the C standard library (no ncurses) -- A good proof-of-concept for making a TUI without using any libraries +- A good proof-of-concept for making a TUI from scratch The core idea behind `bb` is that almost all actions are performed by piping -selected files to external scripts, rather than hard-coding actions. Unix -tools are very good at doing file management, the thing that `bb` adds is -immediate visual feedback and rapid navigation. - -For example, normally on the command line, if you wanted to manually delete a -handful of files, you would first get a listing of the files with `ls`, then -type `rm` followed by typing out the names of the files (with some tab -autocompletion). With `bb`, you can just launch `bb`, see all the files -immediately, select the ones you want with a few keystrokes, and press `D` to -delete them (or `d` for deleting with confirmation). The `D` key's behavior -is defined in a single line of code in `config.h` to pipe the selected files -to `xargs -0 rm -rf`. That's it! If you want to add a mapping to upload files to -your server, you can just add a binding for `xargs scp user@example.com` or, -if you have some complicated one-time task, you can just hit `|` and type in -any arbitrary command and have the selected files piped to it. +selected files to external scripts, rather than having the file manager itself +try to anticipate and hard-code every possible user action. Unix tools are very +good at doing file management, the thing that `bb` adds is immediate visual +feedback and rapid navigation. + +For example, instead of using `ls`, then `rm` and typing out file names, you can +just open `bb`, scroll through the list of files, select the ones you want to +delete, and hit `D`. The `D` key's behavior is defined in a single line of code +in `config.h` as piping the selected files to `xargs -0 rm -rf`. That's it! If +you want to add a mapping to upload files to your server, you can just add a +binding for `xargs -0 scp user@example.com`. Want to zip files? Add a mapping for +`xargs -0 zip "$(printf 'Zip file: ' >/dev/tty && head -n1 /dev/tty)"` or, if +you have some complicated one-time task, you can just hit `|` and type in any +arbitrary command and have the selected files piped to it. ## Zero Dependencies @@ -58,6 +57,9 @@ editing `config.h` and recompiling. In [suckless](https://suckless.org/) style, customizing means editing source code, and compilation is extremely fast. Key character constants are in `keys.h` and the rest of the code is in `bb.c`. +If you want to get user input during a command (e.g. to get the name of a new file), +you can use `/dev/tty` like so: `touch "$(printf 'New file: ' >/dev/tty && head -n1 /dev/tty)"` + ## License `bb` is released under the MIT license. See the `LICENSE` file for full details. |