F2 Commander

F2 Commander is an orthodox file manager for the modern world.

Installation

From PyPI:

pipx install f2-commander

or:

uvx --from f2-commander f2

From source:

uv build
pipx install [--force] dist/f2_commander-0.5.1.tar.gz

This software is designed to work in Linux and macOS. It should also work in WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

Usage

• Start by running f2 in your terminal emulator
• Hit ? to see the built-in help
• Hit q to quit

About

F2 Commander exists to bring the experience of an orthodox file manager into the world of modern computing.

A "file system" can be anything that can seem to contain files and directories, (a local disk, a BLOB storage, a Cloud drive, a compressed file, etc.).

Finally, it is designed to be discoverable: making file systems easy to navigate, and making the F2 Commander itself obvious to use.

F2 Commander is an overgrown personal project, may contain bugs, and is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.

Features

Below is a short summary. For a complete list of features, existing and planned, see the complete feature list. Some features are a work-in-progress as indicated below.

• Works in Linux, macOS
• Works in WSL (should work, but to be extensively tested)
• An orthodox two-panel interface with a footer menu
• Vi-like key bindings
• Classic Fn key bindings, and configurable key bindings
• Command Palette (Ctrl-P)
• Rich and flexible file listing (file attributes, ordering options, filtering with glob, hidden files toggle, compute directory size, and more)
• Incremental search (type to search, fuzzy matching)
• Recursive file search. Find in (text) files.
• Integration with native OS applications (open a directory in a file manager, open a file with a default program)
• File and directory manipulation (copy, move, move to trash, etc.)
• Multiple file selection
• View and edit files
• Configurable bookmarks. Quick "Go to path".
• Preview panel
• Drop to shell
• User-level configuration file
• Extensive "Remote File systems" support. A non-exhaustive list includes: AWS S3, GCP GCS, Azure ADLS, OCI, OSS, DVC, LakeFS, HDFS, Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP/FTPS, SFTP, SMB, WebDAV, and many more. Custom implementations are possible through other fsspec implementations and plugins. **See also the note below.
• Read and write archives and compressed files. A non-exhaustive list includes: ZIP, TAR, XAR, LHA/LZH, ISO 0660 (optical disc files), cpio, mtree, shar, ar, pax, RAR, MS CAB, 7-Zip, WARC, and more - everything supported by libarchive.
• Multiple color themes
• Built-in help

**Note: Remote file systems are in preview. All features are available, but not extensively tested. Connection dialog is rather crude, but is otherwise functional. Connections can be preconfigured in a configuration file using raw fsspec key-value format (see built-in help for more deatils).

And, hopefully, a polished up user experience that you'd normally expect from a robust file manager. Feel free to submit any issues to make F2 Commander even better!

See also a list of known bugs.

Development environment

This project uses uv. The configuration is conventional, use as usual:

uv run f2

Static code analysis and type checks (ruff, mypy) can be ran with uvx. For example:

uvx run ruff check
uvx run mypy

Tests use pytest, installed with the dev dependencies:

uv run pytest

To run all code quality controls:

./check

To run the application with dev tools:

uv run textual console [-v -x SYSTEM -x EVENT -x DEBUG -x INFO]  # this first!
uv run textual run --dev f2.app:F2Commander

To run tests in all target Python versions (typically before a release):

uvx nox [-r]  # -r == --reuse-existing-virtualenvs

About (continued)

"F2" is a loose interpretation of "a File manager with 2 side-by-side panels", and "Commander" is an homage to the old-school orthodox file managers.

"F2 Commander" is a personal project that has grown into a full-fledged file manager and is now open-sourced. Being a personal project means that: a) my intent is to continue the development of the features outlined above, but the development and bug fixing may be irregularly-paced and priorities may shift; b) my intent is to keep F2 Commander stable, but future versions may include backward-incompatible changes where that would seem pragmatic.

Special Thanks

F2 Commander is made with Textual framework, fsspec and other great packages. Many features are made possible or stem directly from these, and I encourage F2 Commander users to support them.

Contributions

Bug reports, feature requests and pull requests are welcome.

If you plan to contribute to the source code, see the "Development environment" above and, please, note that:

• contributed source code must pass the ./check,
• in this repository, contributed source code is only accepted under Mozilla Public License 2.0 and should include according file headers.

License

This application is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.

Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0.