FileBrowser for SublimeText

Ditch sidebar and browse your files in a normal tab with keyboard, like a pro!

Installation

You can install via Sublime Package Control

Or clone this repo into your SublimeText Packages directory and rename it to FileBrowser, in this case, if you want to make auto-refresh work (note it is an optional feature you may ignore it) then some extra steps might be required:

1. Satisfy dependencies
   • If you have Package Control installed, bring up command palette and run Package Control: Satisfy Dependencies command
   • If you have no Package Control, then manually install dependencies (every cloning should be into Packages directory):
     1. Clone https://github.com/codexns/package_events
     2. Clone https://github.com/vovkkk/sublime-pathtools and rename to pathtools
     3. Clone https://github.com/vovkkk/sublime-watchdog and rename to watchdog
     4. Write your own plugin which would handle loading order: pathtools must be loaded before watchdog, and watchdog and package_events must be loaded before FileBrowser, that is why we recommend to use Package Control, but there is option for workaround
2. Restart Sublime Text

Commands and Keybindings

This plugin does not add any keybindings for opening a new tab in Browse Mode. Although, the commands to do that are available in Command Palette but it is recommended to bind F1 to open the current file directory in Browse Mode with this piece of code (that you can add to your Key Bindings - User file):

{
  "keys": ["f1"],
  "command": "dired",
  "args": { "immediate": true }
}

You also can use optional arguments to tweak behavior:

• "immediate": true — open a dired view immediately without prompting. If false (the default) open an input box to enter the root dir of the dired view. This input box implements a completion helper on <tab> and is prefilled with the directory of the current view's file, unless you also set project, see below.
• "project": true — always prefer project's directory(s) rather than path of current view.
• "single_pane": true — always use a single File Browser view, i.e. prefer to reuse existing one rather than create a new.
• "other_group": "left" (or "right) — open FileBrowser in other group, i.e. like sidebar; if you use "left" then all other tabs from left group will be moved into the right one.

You can mix these arguments as you like (perhaps, even bind several shortcuts for different cases); e.g. to completely mimic sidebar, it would be:

{
  "keys": ["f1"],
  "command": "dired",
  "args": {
    "immediate": true,
    "single_pane": true,
    "other_group": "left",
    "project": true
  }
}

Commands

Shortcuts

General Shortcuts

Navigation Shortcuts

Action Shortcuts

If you prefer to open file(s) on Mac in the default app instead of Quick Look, add the following code in your user key bindings file (binds O to open in the default app):

{
  "keys": ["O"],
  "command": "dired_quick_look", "args": { "preview": false },
  "context": [
    { "key": "selector", "operator": "equal", "operand": "text.dired" },
    { "key": "setting.dired_rename_mode", "operand": false }
  ]
}

File statistics column

Press S to toggle an inline stats column that shows each entry’s size and last modified timestamp. The feature is backed by the dired_show_stats setting (enabled by default). Set it to false if you prefer a compact listing or want stats only when you press S:

{
  "dired_show_stats": false
}

Navigation History

Use Alt+Left (Back) and Alt+Right (Forward) to walk a per‑view navigation history.

Rename Mode Shortcuts

NOTE: All these keyboard shortcuts can be customized in your own key-binding file. Open the default key-bindings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Keybinding — Default) and copy the ones you want to change to your Keybinding — User file.

Usage

Selecting Files and Directories

You can select files and/or directories by marking them with m (no move), space or Shift + ↑/↓. You can also use Sublime Text multiple cursors to extend your cursor to the line that has those files/directories.

You can expand or collapse a directory (or multiple directories using marking or multiple cursors) using l/→ to expand and h/← to collapse.

Search

Besides incremental search available by /, you also may use build-in “Goto Symbol…” (⌘+r or ctrl + r) for fuzzy search.

“Find in Files…” integration

Press s to summon “Find in Files…” panel — if you've marked some files they will fill Where field, otherwise it will be filled by current directory path.

Rename Mode

The rename command puts the view into rename mode. The view is made editable so files can be renamed directly in the view using all of your SublimeText tools: multiple cursors, search and replace, etc.

After you are done with editing press enter to commit your changes or escape to cancel them.

Cut, copy and paste files

You can move and copy files/folders. Shortcuts are quite standard: x, c, v with ⌘ or ctrl.

You can copy and/or cut as many items and from many locations as you like — status-bar will show amounts of copied and cut items.
If you change your mind — ⌘+z or ctrl+z will clear both lists. Note, those lists are stored in FileBrowser settings file, so you can edit it by hand if need.

As soon as you paste, each item will be either copied or moved into folder under cursor.
If you want to alter the destination path without moving cursor, you may do so with ⌘+shift+v or ctrl+shift+v to open prompt; you may use prompt without copy/cut before, i.e. if those lists in settings file are empty then prompt will take marked or selected item(s) and suggest copying them.

On Windows all operations will be done via system API with all its features (renaming semantics, interactive overwrite, progress-bar, pause/cancel, and so on).

On other OSes all operations will be done via Python API, which is not that cool, but you will see a vague progress in status-bar and can choose what to do in case of conflicts (overwrite, duplicate, skip), however, there are some restrictions, e.g. folders cannot be overwritten or merged.
Duplication adds separator and generic number to old name, e.g. duplicate of file.ext would be file — 2.ext, you can change separator to any string (beware illegal path characters), e.g.

{
  "dired_dup_separator": "_"
}

so new filename would be file_2.ext

Open in new window

Selecting a couple of files and/or directories (either by marking them or using the normal multiple cursor feature of SublimeText) and pressing w will open them in a new window.

Close FileBrowser when files have been opened

Add the following code in your user key bindings file:

{
  "keys": ["enter"],
  "command": "dired_select", "args": {"and_close": true},
  "context": [
    { "key": "selector", "operator": "equal", "operand": "text.dired" },
    { "key": "setting.dired_rename_mode", "operand": false }
  ]
}

Jump List & Jump Points

Adding Jump Points

While in Browse Mode, you can press P(Shift + p) to add the current directory to your Jump List, we call it a Jump Point. It's like Bookmarks or Favorites in other file managers.

Viewing Jump List

There are several ways to view your Jump list:

Jump List in a Quick Panel in Browse Mode

While in Browse Mode, you can press p to view the Jump List in a Sublime quick panel.

NOTE: This command does NOT create a new window or project. it lets you jump quickly to a particular location.

Jump List in a Quick Panel from anywhere

Bring up Command Palette and search for Browse Mode: Jump List Quick Panel (typing bmq should find it for you). If you want to save some key stokes you can add the following code in your user key bindings file:

{
  "keys": ["f3"],
  "command": "dired_jump",
  "args": { "new_window": true }
}

You can change f3 in the above code to your custom keyboard shortcut.

NOTE: This command creates a new window and open that directory in Sublime with a Browse Mode view. The view opens as a left sidebar by default. To change it add dired_open_on_jump to your user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User). Set it to "right" to open the view as sidebar on the right side of the window or to true to fill all space. A value of false will prevent any view to open when jumping.
To open the directory in the same window call the command with false. To keep the current window if it is empty call the command with "auto" and edit your user settings with "dired_smart_jump": true.

Jump List View

Bring up Command Palette and search for Browse Mode: Jump List (typing bmj should find it for you). This command will open a Jump List View that looks like this:

If you want to save some key stokes you can add the following code in your user key bindings file:

{ "keys": ["f3"], "command": "dired_jump_list" }

You can change f3 in the above code to your custom keyboard shortcut. Jump List View can be browsed using the up/down or j/k. Pressing enter on a jump point will open it in a new window with a Browse Mode view as sidebar or what was configured with dired_open_on_jump. Empty windows will be reused if dired_smart_jump is set to true in your user settings.

Jump List in a new empty window e.g. Hijacking

You can also configure FileBrower to automatically open Jump List View in new empty windows. That is when you run the new_window command (through menu or using shortcuts) or when SublimeText starts and there's no previous windows open. To do this you need to add the code below to your user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User)

{ "dired_hijack_new_window": "jump_list" }

Edit/Delete Jump points

When you are in Jump List View pressing P (Shift + p) allow you to rename or delete (by clearing the name) the jump point that is currently highlighted.

When a jump point is opened in Browse Mode pressing P will also do the same.

NOTE: When a jump point is opened in Browse Mode the path in the header is prefixed with name of the jump point.

Hidden files

By default FileBrowser shows the same entries as Sublime’s sidebar (including honoring folder_exclude_patterns). Unlike the sidebar you can press H to toggle and show all files/folders.

To start dired with all files showing, set:

{ "dired_show_hidden_files": true }

To add extra hide rules without touching the Sublime setting, use dired_hidden_files_patterns:

{ "dired_hidden_files_patterns": [".*", "__pycache__", "*.pyc"] }

Note: On Windows, items with the filesystem “hidden” attribute are always considered hidden. That's a deviation from Sublime where the exclude patterns are strictly path operations.

VCS integration

We integrate with git (and optionally with hg) and highlight changed or new files. You can turn this off by setting git_path to false. For hg you must opt-in as it is rarely used these days. Just set hg_path to hg or an absolute path to its executable in case it's not on PATH.

You can use "vcs_color_blind": true to get a different kind of highlighting.

See further below which scopes we use here.

Hijacking a new empty window

FileBrowser can hijack new empty windows and show you a Browse Mode or Jump List View. That is when you run the new_window command (through menu or using shortcuts) or when SublimeText starts and there's no previous windows open.

This feature is disabled by default. You can activate it by setting dired_hijack_new_window to "jump_list" or "dired" in your user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User).

To disable this feature set it back to false or remove if from your user settings file.

{ "dired_hijack_new_window": "jump_list"}

Using Mouse!

We believe keeping your hands on keyboard and not moving them away to reach the mouse or track-pad will increase your productivity. Despite this, there might be situations where using a mouse to click on a file is easier or you might be in transition to becoming a keyboard ninja and still prefer the mouse by habit. For these situations, you can just double click a file or directory to open them. Although we stand firm with our belief, we're liberals! :)

Auto-refresh

This feature is supposed to automatically refresh a corresponding view(s) whenever something happen within open and/or expanded directories (i.e. a file was created/removed/modified).

Auto-refresh of a corresponding view shall be happen not more than once per second (for performance reason), however, the longest delay is not restricted, which means in some rare cases auto-refresh may not happen for long unrestricted time, but of course you can always refresh a view manually with r.

Auto-refresh can be disabled globally in user settings file

{ "dired_autorefresh": false }

And, regardless of global setting, can be toggled per view via context menu.

Tweaking Look and Feel

Important (color) scopes

We use a few special scopes for highlighting. Typically your color scheme will not have them defined, and then they appear just black and white. These scopes are item.modified.dired and item.untracked.dired for the (git/hg) file statuses. item.colorblind.dired is used in “colorblind”-mode.

Marked ([m]ark/[u]nmark) files are highlighted using dired.marked. Files queued in the internal clipboard are highlighted as well: - Copied items use the dired.copied scope. - Cut items use the dired.cut scope.

You can customize these colors in your active color scheme by adding rules for the scopes above (e.g., set a soft rosa background for dired.copied, and a slightly dimmer foreground for dired.cut).

Customize your color scheme as usual for Sublime Text.

Customizing UI Elements

If you don't like ⠤ symbol and want to hide it (then you should use keyboard binding backspace to go to parent directory) you can do it in your user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User) and paste the code below:

{ "dired_show_parent": false }

If you don't want to see header (underlined full path) on top of file list:

{ "dired_header": false }

If you want to see full path in tab title and thus in window title if tab is focused:

{ "dired_show_full_path": true }

Changing font

Changing the font of sidebar in SublimeText is not that easy! not if you're using FileBrowser as your sidebar. Since it is just a normal Sublime view with a special syntax, you can change the font to whatever font that's available on your system.

To do that, add the code below (don't forget to change the font name!) to user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User).

{ "font_face": "comic sans" }

Changing font size

Normally you want the FileBrowser to use a smaller font compared to your normal views. It helps you see more content and also prevents any font size changes when you make your normal view font bigger or smaller.

You can change the font size by adding the code below to user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User).

{ "font_size": 13 }

Changing nested directories indentation

The amount of indentation for nested directories is controlled by tab_size. By default FileBrowser is using a tab_size of 3 but you can customize it in your user settings file (Preferences → Package Settings → FileBrowser → Settings — User).

Other settings

Disable confirmation dialog for sending items to trash:

{ "dired_confirm_deletions": false }

Change initial width of FileBrowser column (as sidebar):

You can configure the width in three ways:

• float as a fraction of the window width (1.0 == full width).
• int as an exact pixel width; if the value is larger than the current window width (e.g. 1920), it falls back to 0.9.
• [lo, hi] as two floats so FileBrowser can pick a dynamic width between those bounds based on content (this is the default).

{ "dired_width": 250 }  // approximately 250 pixels

or

{ "dired_width": 0.2 }  // fifth part of window

or the dynamic default

{ "dired_width": [0.25, 0.5] }  // pick a width between 25–50% of the window

Keep Vintageous enabled in FileBrowser view (beware of keybindings incompatibilities)

note it is Vintageous setting, if it does not work you should report into appropriate repository

{ "__vi_external_disable": false }

General tip for Windows users

DirectWrite rendering gives better Unicode support and better font appearance overall, to enable it add following setting into Preferences → Settings — User:

{ "font_options": ["directwrite"] }

Credit

This project started as a fork of the awesome dired plugin, originally by Michael Kleehammer but now hosted by kublaios.

@aziz and @vovkkk did more work at https://github.com/aziz/SublimeFileBrowser which I forked here.

License

See the LICENSE file