CXFiles

A cross-platform terminal file explorer built on SharpConsoleUI.

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CXFiles brings a polished, Windows Explorer-style file manager to the terminal. Three-pane layout with folder tree, file list, and detail panel. Tabs, full file operations with background progress tracking, a rich tabbed Properties dialog with live disk-usage breakdown, trash support, context menus, and keyboard-driven navigation.

Browse. Copy. Manage.

Quick Start

Option 1: One-line install (Linux/macOS, no .NET required)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nickprotop/cxfiles/master/install.sh | bash
cxfiles

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nickprotop/cxfiles/master/install.ps1 | iex

Option 2: Build from source (requires .NET 10)

git clone https://github.com/nickprotop/cxfiles.git
cd cxfiles
./build-and-install.sh
cxfiles

Usage

cxfiles              # open at the configured default path (home by default)
cxfiles ~/Downloads  # open at a specific folder (supports ~, relative, absolute)
cxfiles ./           # open at the current working directory

Features

🗂️ Three-Pane Layout	Folder tree, sortable file list with checkboxes, toggleable detail panel
🧭 Tabs	Multiple open folders per window; Ctrl+T to open, Ctrl+W to close, Alt+←/→ to cycle, Ctrl+1..5 to jump
📋 File Operations	Copy, cut, paste, delete, rename with background progress tracking; files with spaces handled correctly
🗑️ Trash Support	Cross-platform trash (XDG on Linux, ~/.Trash on macOS, Recycle Bin on Windows) with restore and empty
📎 Clipboard Portal	View, manage, and remove individual clipboard items (Ctrl+B)
🌳 Folder Tree	Lazy-loading tree with single-click navigation, two-way sync, drive-type icons, smart Linux mount filtering (hides virtual/pseudo filesystems)
⭐ Favorites	Pin folders with Ctrl+D; appear as a "Favorites" section at the top of the folder tree with a quick-access ⭐ dropdown button on the breadcrumb right-bar. Rename, remove (Del on a bookmark node), and session-persistent. Right-click "Add to Favorites" on any folder in tree or file list. Missing targets render dim with a click warning
🔍 Filter & Sort	Fuzzy filtering (/), click-to-sort columns, column resize
🔎 Recursive Search	Ctrl+F opens a per-tab search bar; results stream live as a background walker finds matches, dirs first, with a Path column. Cancellable, cross-filesystem aware (skips /proc, /sys, foreign mounts), 200k entry cap. Lazy metadata hydration keeps the walker fast on huge trees. ./ prefix forces non-recursive; Esc restores the previous listing
❓ Help & About	F1 opens a tabbed modal: categorized keyboard cheatsheet plus an About tab with figlet, environment info, and live home-volume usage
📊 Operations Portal	Live progress bars, per-file status, cancel buttons, dismiss completed (Ctrl+P)
🖱️ Context Menus	Right-click on files or tree folders for contextual actions; tree right-click highlights the target node and operates on the right-clicked item, not the selection
📁 Breadcrumb Bar	Clickable path segments with quick-access locations (Home, Desktop, Docs, Downloads, Trash)
🧭 Go to Path	Ctrl+L (or the ❯ Go to button) turns the breadcrumb into an editable input with filesystem tab-completion. Candidates appear in a dropdown portal after a short pause, or on demand with Tab / Ctrl+Space. Handles ~, absolute, and relative paths. Esc cancels
👁️ Detail Panel	Selection preview with text content, rendered Markdown (headings, lists, code blocks, links), PDF text extract with page count, image preview (half-block or Kitty protocol), and a folder card when nothing is selected (toggle with F3)
🖼️ Image Preview	PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP, WebP rendered in the detail panel with dimensions; native Kitty graphics protocol on supported terminals for full-resolution preview
🎵 Media Metadata	Audio/video files show duration, bitrate, codec, title, artist, album via TagLibSharp; images show EXIF (camera, lens, exposure, GPS)
🖱️ Null-Selection UX	Click empty space to deselect; F4 then shows properties for the current folder
📐 Properties Dialog	Tabbed modal: General, Permissions (rwxr-xr-x + owner/group), Space, Checksums, and a Media tab for images/audio/video with full metadata
💽 Space Tab	Live drive usage + a breakdown of the folder's immediate children as sorted bar graphs — answers "where's my disk going?" without leaving the app
🔐 Checksums Tab	On-demand MD5 / SHA256 with progress bar; cancel by closing the dialog
✅ Multi-Select	Checkbox selection with bulk copy, cut, delete
🖥️ Embedded Terminal	Full PTY-backed terminal (F7/Ctrl+``); dock to right panel or center column (F8`); auto-resize with prompt redraw
✏️ Embedded Editor	Ctrl+E opens files in $EDITOR (or nano) inside the embedded terminal
🔑 Sudo Elevation	Automatic sudo prompt on permission-denied for delete, rename, copy, move, create, and trash restore (Linux/macOS)
⚙️ Options Dialog	NavigationView-based settings with per-OS config storage
👻 Hidden Files	Toggle visibility with Ctrl+H
📡 File Watcher	Auto-refresh on external filesystem changes
⚙️ Layout Persistence	Tree and detail panel column widths saved across sessions; detail panel visibility persisted immediately
🎨 Polished UI	Gradient background, smooth-gradient bar graphs, alternating row tints, truncation fade, column separators, panel headers, underlined breadcrumb links

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
Enter	Open file/folder
Backspace	Navigate to parent
Delete	Delete selected (trash or permanent)
F1	Help & About
F2	Rename
F3	Toggle detail panel
F4	Properties (selection, or current folder if nothing selected)
F5	Refresh
Ctrl+E	Open file in embedded editor
Ctrl+`` / F7`	Toggle embedded terminal
F8	Dock/undock terminal (right panel / center column)
F6	Toggle focus between file list and terminal
Ctrl+N	New file
Ctrl+Shift+N	New folder
Ctrl+T	New tab
Ctrl+W	Close tab
Alt+← / Alt+→	Previous / next tab
Ctrl+1…Ctrl+5	Jump to tab
Ctrl+C	Copy
Ctrl+X	Cut
Ctrl+V	Paste
Ctrl+B	Clipboard portal
Ctrl+P	Operations portal
Ctrl+H	Toggle hidden files
Ctrl+D	Add current folder to Favorites
Ctrl+O	Options
Ctrl+F	Recursive search in current folder
Ctrl+L	Go to path (editable breadcrumb with completion)
/	Filter file list (current folder only)
Ctrl+Q	Quit (confirms if terminal or operations active)

The Properties dialog

Press F4 on a file, folder, or drive (or click Folder Props in the toolbar when nothing is selected). You get a tabbed modal with up to five sections:

• General — name, type, location, size, modified / created / accessed, attributes, symlink target.
• Permissions — Unix mode formatted as rwxr-xr-x plus numeric (0755), owner and group resolved via stat. On Windows, FileAttributes flags.
• Space — a live view of where disk space is going:
  • Drive totals (total / used / free) with a smooth-gradient Used bar.
  • For the current folder or drive, a breakdown of its immediate children, each rendered as its own bar graph. Sizes accumulate live while the scan runs in the background; on completion, rows reorder descending by size and anything beyond the top 20 collapses into an (others: N) bucket.
  • Cross-filesystem children (/proc, /sys, foreign mounts) are detected via DriveInfo, skipped by the walker, and marked (other fs) in their row.
  • Permission-denied entries are counted live and surfaced as a yellow warning so you know the total is a lower bound.
  • The entire scan cancels instantly when the dialog closes.
• Checksums — on-demand MD5 / SHA256 for files, computed in 64 KB chunks with a throttled progress bar.
• Media (images, audio, video only) — technical properties (duration, resolution, bitrate, codecs), tags (title, artist, album, year, genre, track, BPM), and EXIF data for images (camera make/model, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, GPS, date taken).

Architecture

CXFiles uses Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection with a clean service layer:

• IFileSystemService — File system abstraction (listing, copy, move, delete, watch)
• ITrashService — Cross-platform trash with XDG (Linux/macOS) and Windows Recycle Bin implementations
• SudoService — Privilege elevation via sudo on Linux/macOS
• IConfigService — Per-OS configuration (XDG on Linux, AppData on Windows, Library on macOS)
• OperationManager — Background operation tracking with throttled progress events
• LauncherService — Cross-platform file/editor opening with proper argument quoting
• UI Components — Modular panels (BreadcrumbBar, FileListPanel, FolderTreePanel, DetailPanel with image preview, StatusLine)
• Modals — Async TaskCompletionSource-based dialogs (DeleteConfirm, Rename, NewItem, Properties with Media tab, Options, Sudo)
• Portals — Operations portal, clipboard portal, context menus (portal-based overlays)

Requirements

• .NET 10 SDK (for building from source)
• A terminal with Unicode support (Kitty, WezTerm, Ghostty, Windows Terminal, iTerm2)
• Kitty-compatible terminal recommended for full-resolution image preview (falls back to half-block rendering elsewhere)

License

MIT