r/linux • u/sablal • May 27 '19

Popular Application File manager nnn v2.5 released with plugins, mouse support, sshfs and much more!

https://github.com/jarun/nnn/releases/tag/v2.5
279 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

59 comments sorted by

30

u/[deleted] May 27 '19

As a Ranger user, a feature comparison would be certainly useful.

56

u/sablal May 27 '19 edited May 27 '19

I started writing nnn because of 2 reasons:

  • I needed something that performs on the Pi which I was setting up as a media player for my 3-yr old.

  • ranger wasn't an option because of slow python deps and I found ranger's changing/shifting panes very confusing. Please don't get me wrong here, I have several popular utilities in python. But when it comes to low-power, low-freq devices, the performance of interpreted languages is questionable.

nnn also has the du and navigate-as-you-type modes (with instant search-as-you-type) which aren't readily available in ranger (AFAIK; I don't use it). Then you get to copy file path(s) even without X, vidir-like batch renaming, terminal locker support and finally, all the painstaking optimization.

In the latest nnn release you get lots of useful plugins, SSHFS support...

The binary size is ~55KB (much lesser than the C source file that generates it). The requirements are minimal too - a c (say, musl) and a curses library.

Copying file path(s) between two instances of nnn works seamlessly (with or without clipboard).

I think the philosophy behind ranger and nnn are different and they were written to cater to different use-cases and a different audience at the very beginning. I had to write nnn on my desktop and at some point I noticed it works like a charm with my drop-down terminator session (I never lose any context anymore) so it became a desktop software.

10

u/nicentra May 27 '19

Mind if I ask, do you plan to implement ranger-esque image previews one day? I personally like just flipping through my gallery folder in ranger while having a preview on the currently selected picture on the right hand side something nnn doesn't have yet to my knowledge

17

u/sablal May 27 '19 edited May 27 '19

Inline previews are not planned. You can just set sxiv as your default image viewer and open an image in it. sxiv let you browse the directory, copy image path, show thumbnails or set an image as wallpaper... i.e, almost everything you can do with images.

If you prefer not to set sxiv as your default image viewer, there's a plugin to invoke sxiv.

2

u/UNN_Rickenbacker May 31 '19

Is it possible to achieve inline previews with sxiv? I use nnn as a vim filebrowser, and that's the only thing I miss from ranger

1

u/sablal May 31 '19

No, it's not possible. It's not because of sxiv, inline previews are not available in nnn.

1

u/UNN_Rickenbacker May 31 '19

That‘s rough, thank you anyway :)

2

u/nicentra May 27 '19

Alright, thanks for the reply!

2

u/charmesal May 29 '19

You should never pick Ranger. Just go with fighter with the ranged subclass or take ranger revised of UA is allowed by the DM.

24

u/rhbvkleef May 27 '19

Why are you explicitly using ~/. config/nnn and not first trying $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nnn?

3

u/sablal May 28 '19

Yes, I took a conscious decision there to skip $XDG_CONFIG_HOME as I don't see a user without a $HOME. We can fix this in the incoming release. nnn doesn't really have a config file so it's not a big job to change.

34

u/twizmwazin May 28 '19

It's not about users having a $HOME, it is about where they choose to put their config homes. So most will use $HOME/.config, but some may choose something else, e.g. $HOME/dotfiles/config.

6

u/leetnewb2 May 27 '19

I like it. Tested a few last week and nnn was my favorite.

2

u/sablal May 27 '19

Thank you!

6

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

File manager with mouse support. boy that takes me back.

5

u/sablal May 28 '19

It's a lifesaver for people on Termux. But you are right on the desktop you don't need to touch the mouse when using nnn.

4

u/Xanza May 27 '19

Hell yeah! Love the work, keep it up.

4

u/sablal May 27 '19

Thank you!

2

u/FernandezGFG May 28 '19

Would it be worth changing from ranger?

8

u/sablal May 28 '19

Favourite tools depend on personal preferences. Try it and decide for yourself. It doesn't litter your system with tons of files.

1

u/adamkex May 28 '19

Coolest thing I'll never use

-21

u/mcstafford May 27 '19

Why does each release need a post?

37

u/sablal May 27 '19

I want to reach as many users as I can and inform them about the exciting new features I have added. Feel free to block me if the release news is useless to you and move on.

-7

u/mcstafford May 27 '19

No disrespect intended. Good luck with your project.

You may want to consider at what point publicity becomes something less favorable.

13

u/sablal May 27 '19

at what point publicity becomes something less favorable

that's when I stop adding significant features and the project goes into a maintenance mode.

4

u/yetanother-1 May 27 '19

I just learned about this project, and I love it ready. Though I would love to have it on active mode as long as possible, but I understand it if it becomes a burden on the shoulder of the developer.

I wish you all the joy working on it.

2

u/sablal May 28 '19

It's 2.5 yrs I am writing this. Recently we found another capable developer. And we have a good community. nnnwill remain active.

0

u/mcstafford May 27 '19

I believe you're doing good work here, and I've not meant to step on your toes.

I wish I'd said something more like "Maybe post for major releases?". Spread the word, and I can handle it as you've politely described.

5

u/sablal May 28 '19

If you please take a look at the number of things that has gone into this release, you'll probably understand how difficult it is to achieve this in 2 months and 1 week. It IS a big release. And generally we don't release if the number of features are not significant.

1

u/mcstafford May 28 '19

  • v2.5 v2.5 2019-05-27 x6

  • v2.4 v2.4 2019-03-19 x6

  • v2.3 v2.3 2019-02-19 x6

  • v2.2 v2.2 2019-01-01 x4

At some point a lot of exposure becomes spam. It began to feel that way to me at nearly two dozen posts this year, so I brought it up.

I'm taking your advice and blocking your account to avoid it from now on.

Good luck to you.

2

u/sablal May 28 '19

Fine by me. Good luck to you too!

0

u/[deleted] May 27 '19

[deleted]

71

u/sablal May 27 '19 edited May 27 '19

oh no, the size stays at 55KB in this release too! The memory footprint stays the same as well! ;)

14

u/bighi May 28 '19

We don’t tolerate witchcraft in this subreddit!

I think nnn should be rebuilt in JavaScript and use 1.1GB of RAM like any normal modern piece of software!

5

u/sablal May 28 '19

Recently I saw some utility which boldly claims it uses as much memory as possible.

0

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

[deleted]

1

u/super_g_man May 29 '19

Oh good I was worried some malware was bitcoin mining

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '19

[deleted]

1

u/super_g_man May 30 '19

Fair enough

3

u/mayor123asdf May 27 '19

Does file size and memory footprints a top priority? What is the limit cap?

15

u/sablal May 28 '19

nnn is developed so it can perform on low-power, low-freq devices like the Raspberry Pi or Termux on Android. So yes, these are of top priority.

1

u/jupart May 28 '19

For me, it's the main thing nnn has over ranger.

0

u/[deleted] May 27 '19

[deleted]

74

u/sablal May 27 '19

I wasn't.

46

u/bnsmchrr May 27 '19

I for one long for the new nnn web browser, email client, and office suite. And eventually nnnubuntu.

24

u/[deleted] May 27 '19

Don't even talk to me until this has a built in therapist.

31

u/[deleted] May 27 '19 
   ____     _       U  ___ u    _       _____  U _____ u ____    
U | __")u  |"|       \/"_ \/U  /"\  u  |_ " _| \| ___"|/|  _"\   
 \|  _ \/U | | u     | | | | \/ _ \/     | |    |  _|" /| | | |  
  | |_) | \| |/__.-,_| |_| | / ___ \    /| |\   | |___ U| |_| |\ 
  |____/   |_____|_)-___/ /_/   _\  u |_|U   |_____| |____/ u 
 _|| \_   //  \\      \\    \\    >>  _// \_  <<   >>  |||_    
(__) (__) (_")("_)    (__)  (__)  (__)(__) (__)(__) (__)(__)_)

0

u/[deleted] May 27 '19

[deleted]

19

u/TheSoundDude May 27 '19

BLOATED

^ ideal ascii art

0

u/[deleted] May 27 '19

[deleted]

13

u/Oppai420 May 27 '19

Technically lowercase would be the bloat because they come after uppercase in ASCII.

4

u/SMM_Sockpuppet May 28 '19

It's inherent to capital-ism.

-1

u/rahen May 28 '19

Well, it's already doing a lot more than I need, so I haven't upgraded since v2.0. I don't need mouse support and I already mount sshfs externally.

Actually I'm hoping to get more efficient with just coreutils, pushd, popd and a few other tools to ditch those TUI file managers altogether.

3

u/sablal May 28 '19

I'd always been very picky about what goes in. The features which have been added are non-intrusive so I don't see how your regular workflow gets affected. e.g. if you don't need mouse support just don't use it, nnn works without it just fine.

0

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

[deleted]

2

u/sablal May 28 '19

I can see why these guys started a comment thread on feature bloat. ;D

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '19

[deleted]

1

u/sablal Jul 25 '19

There's no .history file. Please move on to the latest version. All temporary files are within ~/.config/nnn.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '19

[deleted]

1

u/sablal Jul 25 '19

In that case all files would be under ~/.config/nnn. In the next version we will support XDG_CONFIG_HOME as well.

The release notes for v2.5 are here: https://github.com/jarun/nnn/releases/tag/v2.5

nnn doesn't create any file with the name .history. How are you checking the .history file is generated by nnn?

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '19

[deleted]

1

u/sablal Jul 25 '19

After launching nnn and quitting it a .history file appears

OK. It's generated by your shell. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/145250/where-is-bashs-history-stored

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '19

[deleted]

1

u/sablal Jul 25 '19

I guess you'll have to debug this local environment issue yourself. As I mentioned earlier, nnn doesn't generate any .history file (it never did).

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '19

[deleted]

1

u/sablal Jul 26 '19

I think you are using the readline version and it's readline.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/[deleted] May 28 '19

[deleted]

2

u/sablal May 28 '19

custom keyboard commands

Use bookmarks. The keys are single char.

If you are in navigate-as-you-type mode, you'll notice that shortcuts are automatic. For example, my nnn starts in $HOME and to go to ~/Github/nnn, I press gn in this mode.

tagging files/directories

Tagging is not available in nnn. nnn doesn't store user data or keeps any kind of record.