Lui: a simple `ls -lah`-like terminal file manager

Developer lukeflo released lui, a terminal file manager written in Zig that reimplements an interactive version of `ls -lah --group-directories-first`, hosted on Codeberg. The tool reached version 0.3.0, which added a `.zon` config file for defining fast-selection directories, after earlier fixes to the `build.zig.zon` dependency URLs and hashes; lukeflo wrote that no LLM was used to write the code, though the sole external dependency, `libvaxis`, uses some LLM support. lukeflo said lui now serves as their everyday file manager and as a file picker for the Helix editor, while cautioning that complex or critical file operations should be run outside lui.

lui : lui is a simple terminal file manager. Its main idea was building an interactive version of one of my most used Linux commands: ls -lah --group-directories-first . https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui While there are many fancy TUI file manager out there, I’ve tried most but found them bloated with features unnecessary to me. Thus, I just built my own one. Originally written in Rust called jafff https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/jafff I wanted to rewrite in in Zig, since I almost fully abandoned Rust, plus the Rust version is much slower. And here it is For now, only with very limited features. But it already serves as file picker for my Helix editor and as fast cd’ing tool. I will implement some more core features in the near future. However, if you’re looking for the next yazi , keep looking somewhere else 0.16 I did not use any LLM for writing my code. Neither as agents, nor for prompting questions, ideas, reviews to a chat bot. However, the only external dep I used for this program, libvaxis , is using some LLM support. 18 Likes Great, exactly what I’m using when I run yazi. But there is an error with build.zig.zon , I opened an issue. 2 Likes Yeah, thanks. I worked with local copies of the deps repos and forgot to replace them with the correct URLs. Will update this asap. Updated the build.zig.zon file with the correct deps URLs and hashes. Should build now without problems. https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui/commit/11e9d6f5f0bbf1a6305339ad5afcd3d9e796e574 https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui/commit/11e9d6f5f0bbf1a6305339ad5afcd3d9e796e574 However, if you or anyone else find more errors, please report via issues. As said, its still very early and I for sure didn’t catch every error. 2 Likes Staying busy improving lui I just implemented possibility to create files and dirs as current user with default permissions , renaming items, as well as having feedback in form of simple status messages success and error . Its tested, but not in uncommon scenarios. Thus, if you find some comp/runtime panics, just tell me. 1 Like Booya, in 0.3.0 just implemented a config .zon file which lets you define directories for fast selection. Now, lui took over as my every day standard file manager TUI Just https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui/src/commit/34155825302f434a6f4c72593cfa0c5fcc561ec6 implemented some more little features: - Use X to fast toggle exec bit on files like chmod +x|-x file - Open files with l | - | Return - Set file opener in luiconfig.zon for files which should be opened in external programms via a default opener like xdg-open - Set tui opener in luiconfig.zon to open plain text files with a terminal text editor vim , helix , nano … in the same terminal window that lui runs in; suspending the latter as long as the file is edited. tui opener overrides file opener for plain text files if both are set. - Some minor fixes. Adding “keybindings” section to README. Next feature implemented: - Mark items for one of the operations: yank/copy y / move m / delete d toggles . - Process action for all marked items with P . - Items that have been marked for yank/move will be yanked/moved to the currently opened directory. - Items marked for deletion will either be deleted permanently, or, if the .trash folder path in the config file is set, moved to the trash folder. - Unmark all items with C . All of these actions are processed with default setting like permissions etc. Its a nice and quick way for moving some files while in the TUI. However, for more complex file operations or if the files are critical ones, I highly recommend running these processes outside of lui Just implemented optional git info. When lui is run with the -g / --git flag, it’ll provide a simple git info area at the top of the screen when in a git root dir , printing current branch and changed/untracked files using git’s porcelain format version 1 specs as explained in man git-status . Thank you I noticed a bug though. If I try to enter the .git sub-directory I get this: thread 2210581 panic: start index 3 is larger than end index 0 /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/git.zig:101:47: 0x121212a in getGitStatus main.zig break :blk try allocator.dupe u8, line 3..end ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/DirContent.zig:275:38: 0x121377f in buildGitInfo main.zig const git info = git.getGitStatus self.arena, self.io, self.dir catch { ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/DirList.zig:706:48: 0x12e39f1 in loadDir main.zig self.luitui.git info = try dir.buildGitInfo ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/DirList.zig:528:29: 0x12e595c in enterDirOrOpen main.zig try self.loadDir dir to load ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/DirList.zig:156:40: 0x12efc70 in listEventHandler main.zig try self.enterDirOrOpen ctx ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/LuiTui.zig:177:56: 0x12e2720 in typeErasedEventHandler main.zig .dir list = try self.dir list.listEventHandler ctx, event , ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/zig-pkg/vaxis-0.6.0-BWNV HHwCQCy33z jb0RHLjoinqQ8tgQVZI9z2e5Yqdd/src/vxfw/vxfw.zig:287:26: 0x127add8 in handleEvent main.zig return handle self.userdata, ctx, event ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/zig-pkg/vaxis-0.6.0-BWNV HHwCQCy33z jb0RHLjoinqQ8tgQVZI9z2e5Yqdd/src/vxfw/App.zig:598:31: 0x128f229 in handleEvent main.zig try target.handleEvent ctx, event ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/zig-pkg/vaxis-0.6.0-BWNV HHwCQCy33z jb0RHLjoinqQ8tgQVZI9z2e5Yqdd/src/vxfw/App.zig:134:54: 0x12455ff in run main.zig try focus handler.handleEvent &ctx, event ; ^ /home/jeremy/projects/zig/lui/src/main.zig:69:20: 0x121e555 in main main.zig try app.run luitui.widget , .{} ; ^ /mnt/data/zig/0.16.0/lib/std/start.zig:737:30: 0x1220687 in callMain std.zig return wrapMain root.main .{ ^ ../sysdeps/nptl/libc start call main.h:58:16: 0x7a722662a1c9 in libc start call main ../sysdeps/x86/libc-start.c ../csu/libc-start.c:360:3: 0x7a722662a28a in libc start main impl ../sysdeps/x86/libc-start.c ???:?:?: 0x143dc94 in ??? ??? 1 Like Thanks for posting. Would you reopen it as issue in the repo? Thats easier for me tracking it Fixed with commit 7268ab07cfd0ccf https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui/commit/7268ab07cfd0ccfffd01b4447899efa0fb940934 lukeflo https://ziggit.dev/u/lukeflo 14 The last weeks I spent writing my own TUI library in Zig. Background to do so was lui , my TUI file manager. Since its my hobby fun project I want it to be as AI/LLM-free as possible. Unfortunately, the Zig library I used for TUI rendering, libvaxis https://github.com/rockorager/libvaxis , makes heavy use of those tools which doesn’t mean its a bad lib, indeed libvaxis works really good . Other alternatives like zigzag https://github.com/meszmate/zigzag or xitui https://github.com/xit-vcs/xitui were either mainly AI/LLM-generated too or didn’t fit my personal preferences regarding usability. Now, that my TUI lib dabeob https://ziggit.dev/t/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig/18166 is in a usable state, I adapted lui ’s code to replace libvaxis with dabeob . Surprisingly, it only took me a few evenings to edit the code. Now, lui runs with my own TUI rendering lib for now, not merged into main, but in a specific branch https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui/src/branch/switch tui to dabeob and I already use this version daily; also to catch only sporadic occuring errors/segfaults. The layout always looks almost identically top term uses dabeob , bottom uses libvaxis : Additionally, using dabeob reduced memory usage significantly: less than 50% of what the libvaxis -version uses measured with ps mem https://github.com/pixelb/ps mem on my ~/Downloads dir which contains many different files : bash dabeob version $ ps mem -S -p $ pgrep lui Private + Shared = RAM used Swap used Program 1.5 MiB + 28.5 KiB = 1.6 MiB 0.0 KiB lui --------------------------------------------- 1.6 MiB 0.0 KiB ============================================= libvaxis version $ ps mem -S -p $ pgrep lui old Private + Shared = RAM used Swap used Program 4.2 MiB + 25.5 KiB = 4.2 MiB 0.0 KiB lui old --------------------------------------------- 4.2 MiB 0.0 KiB ============================================= The binary is smaller too. And I couldn’t notice a performance dropoff compared to the former version. I will run the binary build from the dabeob branch for some more days before merging into main to be sure there are no major errors which I didn’t catch until now. If anyone feels called to try the new branch out too, I’m happy for feedback in form of repo issues if you encounter some errors . After all, I’m really happy that it was relatively easy and much fun to write my own TUI lib and already were able to adapt it to my favourite personal coding project 7 Likes lukeflo https://ziggit.dev/u/lukeflo 15 Just merged the dabeob branch into main. That lui now runs with my own custom TUI lib really makes me happy. I did not expect it to be that satisfying And a special thanks to @Wunka https://ziggit.dev/u/wunka and @tranzystorekk https://ziggit.dev/u/tranzystorekk for their contributions to both projects in the last days which helped to eliminate some errors I missed out on 1 Like