From 8f73ec72411aee6f3493295b558190635a12ef28 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bruce Hill Date: Wed, 22 May 2019 01:39:15 -0700 Subject: Added null-separation option for xargs to properly handle funky filenames --- README.md | 63 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 63 insertions(+) create mode 100644 README.md (limited to 'README.md') diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dcc619b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +# bb - A bitty browser for command line file management + +`bb` is a TUI console file browser that is: + +- Extremely lightweight (currently around 1.2K lines of code) +- 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 + +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. + +## Zero Dependencies + +There's a lot of TUI libraries out there like ncurses and termbox, but +essentially all they do is write ANSI escape sequences to the terminal. `bb` +does all of that by itself, just using basic calls to `write()`, with no +external libraries beyond the C standard library. Since `bb` only has to +support the terminal functionality that it uses itself, `bb`'s entire source +code is less than half the size of the source code for an extremely compact +library like termbox, and less than *half a percent* of the size of the source +code for ncurses. I hope anyone checking out this project can see it as a great +example of how you can build a full TUI without ncurses or any external +libraries as long as you're willing to hand-write a few escape sequences. + +## Building + +`make` +`sudo make install` + +## Usage + +Just run `bb` to launch the file browser. Press `?` for a full list of +available key bindings. In short: `h`/`j`/`k`/`l` or arrow keys for navigation, +`q` to quit, to toggle selection, `d` to delete, `c` to copy, `m` to +move, `r` to rename, `n` to create a new file, `N` to create a new directory, +and `|` to pipe files to a command. + +## Hacking + +If you want to customize `bb`, you can add or change the key bindings by +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`. + +## License + +`bb` is released under the MIT license. See the `LICENSE` file for full details. -- cgit v1.2.3