XFiles

XFiles is a file manager for X11. It can navigate through directories, show icons for files, select files, call a command to open files, generate thumbnails, and call a command to run on right mouse button click.

Options

XFiles understand the following command-line options in addition to a directory given as argument.

• -a: List all files, including dotfiles.
• -N name: Specify a resource/instance name for XFiles.
• -X resources: Specify X resources for XFiles.

Environment

XFiles depends on a few environment variables to be usable:

• OPENER: Program to be called to open files. Defaults to xdg-open.
• CACHEDIR or XDG_CACHE_HOME: Path to directory where thumbnails must be cached.

Scripting

XFiles depends on a few scripts that the user must have in their $PATH. XFiles comes with examples for those scripts.

• xfilesctl: Script called when the user interacts with XFiles. This script can handle menus, file dropping and key presses. The example xfilesctl script that comes with XFiles uses xmenu for context menus and dmenu for the URL bar. It also uses xclip(1) for dealing with the clipboard.

• xfilesthumb: Script called for generating thumbnails. Thumbnails are 64x64 images in the PPM format containing miniatures for files. The example script xfilesthumb script that comes with XFiles uses ImageMagick, ffmpegthumbnailer, librsvg and pdftoppm to generate thumbnails for different types of files. For thumbnails to work, either the environment variable CACHEDIR or XDG_CACHE_HOME must be set to the path of an existing writeable and readable directory where a directory will be created for thumbnails to be cached.

Customization

XFiles can be customized by setting the following X resources, either before invoking XFiles, or while it is running (XFiles updates its theme after a updating the X resources database with xrdb).

• XFiles.faceName: Font for drawing text.
• XFiles.faceSize: Font size.
• XFiles.fileIcons: File glob patterns to icons associations.
• XFiles.opacity: Background opacity (from 0.0 to 1.0).
• XFiles.background: Background color.
• XFiles.foreground: Text color.
• XFiles.activeBackground: Background color for selected entries.
• XFiles.activeForeground: Text color for selected entries.
• XFiles.statusBarEnable: Whether to enable the statusbar.

Non-features

XFiles does not come with any of the following features:

• Context menu: Use xmenu or pmenu for that.
• URL bar: Use dmenu for that.
• File operations: Use mv, cp for that.
• File opening: Use xdg-open for that.
• Clipboard copy: Use xclip for that.

Installation

Run make all to build. Then install the binary file ./xfiles somewhere in your $PATH; and install the manual file ./xfiles.1 somewhere in your $MANPATH.

Usage

• Double left click on files open them.
• Dragging files perform drag-and-drop.
• Dragging empty space performs rectangular selection.
• Middle click opens the scroller (a kind of scrollbar + autoScroll).
• Right click invokes xfilesctl.

License

The code and manual are under the MIT/X license. The icons are in CC0/Public Domain. See ./LICENSE for more information.

Epilogue

Read the manual.