Add file browser

[drybalka]

This is a minimal implementation of the file browser, which would probably cover a lot of requirements in #200. The whole thing works analogous to the https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope-file-browser.nvim as suggested in this comment. Even though the resolution of the discussion seems to be "file tree/browser is too hard, it should be implemented as a plugin", I feel like my changes are quite small and natural to be considered for adding to the core nonetheless.

The implementation simply builds on the existing file picker and only modifies 3 files, so the added maintenance burden should be quite small. The code itself is not particularly elegant (in my rather inexperienced opinion), but I did not want to over-complicate things. This is also the reason why some features might be missing.

Feel free to modify this PR or simply make suggestions, I'd be happy to improve it. This is also my first PR here, so sorry if I miss anything.

[daedroza]

Would it be possible to implement a file browser with this methodology instead? https://github.com/stevearc/oil.nvim

It uses a buffer/pop to navigate and edit files like you're inside a buffer.

[gj1118]

@drybalka this is awesome.. thanks for the effort. Can you please post a screenshot as to how it looks ? Basically I am interested to show how nested directories/files are being presented.
Thanks

[drybalka]

Would it be possible to implement a file browser with this methodology instead? https://github.com/stevearc/oil.nvim

It uses a buffer/pop to navigate and edit files like you're inside a buffer.

I am not a maintainer of helix, but in my opinion this is rather a plugin functionality. First of all, it would be hard-ish to implement and therefore to maintain. Secondly, buffers are primarily used for text editing and one does not usually need to create/delete/rename files so much.

[drybalka]

@drybalka this is awesome.. thanks for the effort. Can you please post a screenshot as to how it looks ? Basically I am interested to show how nested directories/files are being presented. Thanks

Well, the idea was to make it look and behave like the original telescope-file-browser, so you may look at the showcase video there (just without all pretty-niceness as this is just a proof-of-concept). As for a real screenshot it looks (quite bare bones) like this:

In other words, both the picker and the preview (if a dir is selected) show the contents at depth 1, similar to how ls works.

[archseer]

I kind of like just how simple this change is! It reuses existing UI components and allows exploring the file tree without adding any of the heavier features.

[the-mikedavis]

This style is used by the file picker because finding files is a potentially long-running iterator and we might use the injector to push some files asynchronously after a timeout. Since you've already collected the directory contents above you should pass that vec as the third argument to Picker::new

[the-mikedavis]

Also I believe this function should return a result and pass up the error from directory_content. Currently if you fail to list the directory contents a blank picker opens

[drybalka]

Great suggestions, simplified the code, thank you!

[zegervdv]

I think it would be useful to have the equivalent version of file_picker_in_current_buffer_directory. I often use this, only to realize I need to go one or more levels up. The file_browser would solve that perfectly :).

It could be something like this:

fn file_browser_in_current_buffer_directory(cx: &mut Context) {
    let doc_dir = doc!(cx.editor)
        .path()
        .and_then(|path| path.parent().map(|path| path.to_path_buf()));

    let path = match doc_dir {
        Some(path) => path,
        None => {
            cx.editor.set_error("current buffer has no path or parent");
            return;
        }
    };

    if let Ok(picker) = ui::file_browser(path) {
        cx.push_layer(Box::new(overlaid(picker)));
    }
}

[drybalka]

I think it would be useful to have the equivalent version of file_picker_in_current_buffer_directory. I often use this, only to realize I need to go one or more levels up. The file_browser would solve that perfectly :).

I think this can even be the default behavior, thanks for suggesting! Not sure when I would even need to open a file browser in the project root. I deliberately wanted to keep this PR simple and feature-poor, but your suggestion is quite simple and I think it is worth it.

[baldwindavid]

@drybalka This is perfect with the change to the current buffer directory. It's similar to good ol' netrw for quick navigation and covers 95% of the needs for me. The more advanced stuff (copy, paste, create, delete, etc) can be covered by a mix of #11164, shell scripts, wezterm, and the yazi file explorer. Thanks for your work!

[zegervdv]

@drybalka found a small issue when testing: if the cursor is on a binary file, the preview will mess up the view and leave random characters everywhere. Maybe binary files can be excluded from preview somehow?
These files are normally excluded from the file_picker, so maybe this is a more general issue with the preview.

[drybalka]

@drybalka found a small issue when testing: if the cursor is on a binary file, the preview will mess up the view and leave random characters everywhere. Maybe binary files can be excluded from preview somehow? These files are normally excluded from the file_picker, so maybe this is a more general issue with the preview.

@zegervdv I am using the same file previewer as file_picker, so the problem is probably in the previewer itself. Although as far as I tested the usual .jpg, .pdf, and executables are all correctly previewed as <Binary file>. Maybe you're using some exotic file formats?

[thomasaarholt]

It would be nice to add support for going straight to the root of the project if the current buffer hasn't been saved yet. I went to test the file browser functionality by escaping the file picker when calling hx ., but then it didn't work:

Screen.Recording.2024-09-10.at.08.18.51.mov

[thomasaarholt]

Actually, I can't get this to work at all? Running on MacOS.

Screen.Recording.2024-09-10.at.08.47.35.mov

Here is the log from hx -vvv .

[drybalka]

Actually, I can't get this to work at all? Running on MacOS.

Well, this is actually the behavior I get when using the command palette for the file_picker as well, I guess the palette is somehow buggy in this regard. I just mapped it to some keymap and tested like that.

But anyway, even if you map it correctly and then try to open the file_browser after hx . then it will probably still would not work. The behavior is the same as file_picker and requires an opened document to get the current path where to open the browser. I guess it would make sense to default it to the current working directory.

[L-Trump]

Actually, I can't get this to work at all? Running on MacOS.
Screen.Recording.2024-09-10.at.08.47.35.mov

Here is the log from hx -vvv .

Actually in current latest version of helix, no file picker can open from the command pallete (tried in nixos and archlinux). It seems like another bug.

[summersz]

I have the same reported issue when trying to open the browser from the command palette. Works great when opened from a keymap though.

I do have a couple of suggestions to consider

1. Can directory names be appended with a '/' to distinguish them (like netrw)

2. Can left and right keys be used to navigate down and up directories, respectively? ( I have gotten used to this in yazi and find it very intuitive)

[m0ar]

So stoked to see this @drybalka! 🫶

Probably not worth it at this stage as merging the base feature is higher priority, but it'd be cool be be able to classify the entries with icons. Having a trailing slash on dirs makes sense, but hugely useful IMO to when something is linked, and being able to visually filter on filetypes.

Kinda like lsd, which has a default set of unicode chars, but being able to opt in to using nerdfont glyphs for extra gloss.

I could probably take a look at doing this when this is in if you aren't feeling it :)

[drybalka]

@summersz Adding slash to dirs is a great idea, thank you! Using other keys in a picker is harder. The current design does not allow picker-specific keymaps, and even remapping the existing keys is not allowed yet. I will leave this idea for the future, as pickers refactor should come at some point.

@m0ar I also really like the idea with icons! The file_browser picker shares a lot of code with the file_picker, so if the icons would work there then most probably they will also work here. I don't want to complicate this PR with icons at this point, but you may already try implementing them for the file_picker.

[thomasaarholt]

To use this, you can add the following keybinding to your config (:config-open, and then after saving :config-reload):

[keys.normal.space.space]
f = "file_browser"

Now, you can double-tap space and then press f to open the file browser.

Note that you cannot open the file browser from the command palette due to #4508 (as discussed above).

[summersz]

My preference is for @NikitaRevenco's suggestion.

I have been using this for a while and exclusively with file_browser_in_current_buffer_directory. This implementation is similar to netrw which opens at the buffer directory, which I think this is most suited for.

This is still inline with f/F, where the capitalization opens a narrower scope. I think the browser is more useful at working and buffer directories so makes it sense to deviate.

[drybalka]

@m0ar Thank you for the cupcake!

I deliberately did not add the default key mappings because they are often a matter of taste. I would prefer to get a green flag from the core maintainers with a wider vision for helix first, or maybe one of them may even add a commit with the mappings themself before the merge, as it may be faster than writing a github comment =) I personally use space+e/E for the "explorer" mnemonic, but any other combination will do as well.

[drybalka]

@the-mikedavis Thank you very much for the review, I really appreciate the insights! I added the styling for dirs, as you suggested, and also removed canonicalization and unnecessary is_dir syscalls. Now the type signatures are a bit polluted with (PathBuf, bool) tuples, but I just couldn't come up with a decent name for it (PathBufWithSomeMetadata or FileBrowserEntry are not better, I think). Hopefully this is fine.

I also had to rebase to the newest master to get the styling code, but I did not modify any commits, only added the last one.

Have a Merry Christmas!

[Axlefublr]

thank you for rebasing @drybalka! for us forkers that is very valuable :3
hope this PR will get merged into core anyway, though!

[nik-rev]

I wouldn't call this an error, honestly. For example I'm frequently doing hx . and then opening the file browser, since i am in a [scratch], everytime I do that it adds a red message to the statusline, so it looks like something went wrong, but really it's just fine

I think that this call to set_error can just be removed

[drybalka]

To be fair, this function is called file_browser_in_current_buffer_directory, so this error is quite justified to inform the user that the [scratch] buffer does not have a dedicated directory. In my opinion, it would be confusing to remove this message for cases when something actually goes wrong.

What you want to call after hx . is probably file_browser_in_current_directory or simply file_browser. Now I agree, that it is more convenient to have a single key combination that covers all file browsing needs in one go, and arguably file_browser_in_current_buffer_directory already does that for the price of showing you a somewhat-irritating-but-easily-ignorable error message. In an ideal world one would probably have to wait for when programmable config will be available in helix and code the desired behavior themself.

[the-mikedavis]

I think it would be nice to set a default keybind of <space>. for this. Thoughts @archseer? @pascalkuthe?

[pascalkuthe]

Seems fine to me but I haven't looked at this PR much yet

[RoloEdits]

I think <space>e could also work. Could have a <space>E, similar in nature to the file picker.

[KevinDanne]

I have created a PR that adds mappings and fixes the docs check drybalka#1