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VIFM(1) General Commands Manual VIFM(1)
NAME
vifm - vi file manager
SYNOPSIS
vifm [OPTION]...
vifm [OPTION]... path
vifm [OPTION]... path path
DESCRIPTION
Vifm is an ncurses based file manager with vi like keybindings. If you
use vi, vifm gives you complete keyboard control over your files with-
out having to learn a new set of commands.
OPTIONS
vifm starts in the current directory unless it is given a different di-
rectory on the command line or 'vifminfo' option includes "savedirs"
(in which case last visited directories are used as defaults).
- Read list of files from standard input stream and compose custom
view out of them (see "Custom views" section). Current working
directory is used as a base for relative paths.
<path> Starts Vifm in the specified path.
<path> <path>
Starts Vifm in the specified paths.
Specifying two directories triggers split view even when vifm was in
single-view mode on finishing previous run. To suppress this behaviour
:only command can be put in the vifmrc file.
When only one path argument is found on command-line, the left/top pane
is automatically set as the current view.
Paths to files are also allowed in case you want vifm to start with
some archive opened.
--select <path>
Open parent directory of the given path and select specified
file in it.
-f Makes vifm instead of opening files write selection to
$VIFM/vimfiles and quit.
--choose-files <path>|-
Sets output file to write selection into on exit instead of
opening files. "-" means standard output. Use empty value to
disable it.
--choose-dir <path>|-
Sets output file to write last visited directory into on exit.
"-" means standard output. Use empty value to disable it.
--delimiter <delimiter>
Sets separator for list of file paths written out by vifm.
Empty value means null character. Default is new line charac-
ter.
--on-choose <command>
Sets command to be executed on selected files instead of opening
them. The command may use any of macros described in "Command
macros" section below. The command is executed once for whole
selection.
--logging[=<startup log path>]
Log some operational details $VIFM/log. If the optional startup
log path is specified and permissions allow to open it for writ-
ing, then logging of early initialization (before value of $VIFM
is determined) is put there.
--server-list
List available server names and exit.
--server-name <name>
Name of target or this instance (sequential numbers are appended
on name conflict).
--remote
Sends the rest of the command line to another instance of vifm,
--server-name is treated just like any other argument and should
precede --remote on the command line. When there is no server,
quits silently. There is no limit on how many arguments can be
processed. One can combine --remote with -c <command> or +<com-
mand> to execute commands in already running instance of vifm.
See also "Client-Server" section below.
--remote-expr
passes expression to vifm server and prints result. See also
"Client-Server" section below.
-c <command> or +<command>
Run command-line mode <command> on startup. Commands in such
arguments are executed in the order they appear in command line.
Commands with spaces or special symbols must be enclosed in dou-
ble or single quotes or all special symbols should be escaped
(the exact syntax strongly depends on shell). "+" argument is
equivalent to "$" and thus picks last item of of the view.
--help, -h
Show a brief command summary and exit vifm.
--version, -v
Show version information and quit.
--no-configs
Skip reading vifmrc and vifminfo.
See "Startup" section below for the explanations on $VIFM.
General keys
Ctrl-C or Escape
cancel most operations (see "Cancellation" section below), clear
all selected files.
Ctrl-L clear and redraw the screen.
Basic Movement
The basic vi key bindings are used to move through the files and pop-up
windows.
k, gk, or Ctrl-P
move cursor up one line.
j, gj or Ctrl-N
move cursor down one line.
h when 'lsview' is off move up one directory (moves to parent di-
rectory node in tree view), otherwise move left one file.
l when 'lsview' is off move into a directory or launch a file,
otherwise move right one file. See "Selection" section below.
gg move to the first line of the file list.
G move to the last line in the file list.
gh go up one directory regardless of view representation (regular,
ls-like). Also can be used to leave custom views including tree
view.
gl or Enter
enter directory or launch a file. See "Selection" section be-
low.
H move to the first file in the window.
M move to the file in the middle of the window.
L move to the last file in the window.
Ctrl-F or Page Down
move forward one page.
Ctrl-B or Page Up
move back one page.
Ctrl-D jump back one half page.
Ctrl-U jump forward one half page.
n% move to the file that is n percent from the top of the list (for
example 25%).
0 or ^ move cursor to the first column. See 'lsview' option descrip-
tion.
$ move cursor to the last column. See 'lsview' option descrip-
tion.
Space switch file lists.
gt switch to the next tab (wrapping around).
{n}gt switch to the tab number {n} (wrapping around).
gT switch to the previous tab (wrapping around).
{n}gT switch to {n}-th previous tab.
Movement with Count
Most movement commands also accept a count, 12j would move down 12
files.
[count]%
move to percent of the file list.
[count]j
move down [count] files.
[count]k
move up [count] files.
[count]G or [count]gg
move to list position [count].
[count]h
go up [count] directories.
Scrolling panes
zt redraw pane with file in top of list.
zz redraw pane with file in center of list.
zb redraw pane with file in bottom of list.
Ctrl-E scroll pane one line down.
Ctrl-Y scroll pane one line up.
Pane manipulation
Second character can be entered with or without Control key.
Ctrl-W H
move the pane to the far left.
Ctrl-W J
move the pane to the very bottom.
Ctrl-W K
move the pane to the very top.
Ctrl-W L
move the pane to the far right.
Ctrl-W h
switch to the left pane.
Ctrl-W j
switch to the pane below.
Ctrl-W k
switch to the pane above.
Ctrl-W l
switch to the right pane.
Ctrl-W b
switch to bottom-right window.
Ctrl-W t
switch to top-left window.
Ctrl-W p
switch to previous window.
Ctrl-W w
switch to other pane.
Ctrl-W o
leave only one pane.
Ctrl-W s
split window horizontally.
Ctrl-W v
split window vertically.
Ctrl-W x
exchange panes.
Ctrl-W z
quit preview pane or view modes.
Ctrl-W -
decrease size of the view by count.
Ctrl-W +
increase size of the view by count.
Ctrl-W <
decrease size of the view by count.
Ctrl-W >
increase size of the view by count.
Ctrl-W |
set current view size to count.
Ctrl-W _
set current view size to count.
Ctrl-W =
make size of two views equal.
For Ctrl-W +, Ctrl-W -, Ctrl-W <, Ctrl-W >, Ctrl-W | and Ctrl-W _ com-
mands count can be given before and/or after Ctrl-W. The resulting
count is a multiplication of those two. So "2 Ctrl-W 2 -" decreases
window size by 4 lines or columns.
Ctrl-W | and Ctrl-W _ maximise current view by default.
Marks
Marks are set the same way as they are in vi.
You can use these characters for marks [a-z][A-Z][0-9].
m[a-z][A-Z][0-9]
set a mark for the file at the current cursor position.
'[a-z][A-Z][0-9]
navigate to the file set for the mark.
There are also several special marks that can't be set manually:
- ' (single quote) - previously visited directory of the view, thus
hitting '' allows switching between two last locations
- < - the first file of the last visually selected block
- > - the last file of the last visually selected block
Searching
/regular expression pattern
search for files matching regular expression in forward direc-
tion and advance cursor to next match.
/ perform forward search with top item of search pattern history.
?regular expression pattern
search for files matching regular expression in backward direc-
tion and advance cursor to previous match.
? perform backward search with top item of search pattern history.
Trailing slash for directories is taken into account, so /\/ searches
for directories and symbolic links to directories. At the moment //
works too, but this can change in the future, so consider escaping the
slash if not typing pattern by hand.
Matches are automatically selected if 'hlsearch' is set. Enabling
'incsearch' makes search interactive. 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' op-
tions affect case sensitivity of search queries as well as local filter
and other things detailed in the description of 'caseoptions'.
[count]n
go to the next file matching last search pattern. Takes last
search direction into account.
[count]N
go to the previous file matching last search pattern. Takes
last search direction into account.
If 'hlsearch' option is set, hitting n/N to perform search and go to
the first matching item resets current selection in normal mode. It is
not the case if search was already performed on files in the directory,
thus selection is not reset after clearing selection with escape key
and hitting n/N key again.
Note: vifm uses extended regular expressions for / and ?.
[count]f[character]
search forward for file with [character] as first character in
name. Search wraps around the end of the list.
[count]F[character]
search backward for file with [character] as first character in
name. Search wraps around the end of the list.
[count];
find the next match of f or F.
[count],
find the previous match of f or F.
Note: f, F, ; and , wrap around list beginning and end when they are
used alone and they don't wrap when they are used as selectors.
File Filters
There are three basic file filters:
- dot files filter (does not affect "." and ".." special directories,
whose appearance is controlled by the 'dotdirs' option), see 'dot-
files' option;
- permanent filter;
- local filter (see description of the "=" normal mode command).
Permanent filter essentially allows defining a group of files names
which are not desirable to be seen by default, like temporary or backup
files, which might be created alongside normal ones. Just like you
don't usually need to see hidden dot files (files starting with a dot).
Local filter on the other hand is for temporary immediate filtering of
file list at hand, to get rid of uninterested files in the view or to
make it possible to use % range in a :command.
For the purposes of more deterministic editing permanent filter is
split into two parts:
- one edited explicitly via :filter command;
- another one which is edited implicitly via zf shortcut.
Files are tested against both parts and a match counts if at least one
of the parts matched.
Each file list has its own copy of each filter.
Filtered files are not checked in / search or :commands.
Files and directories are filtered separately. This is done by append-
ing a slash to a directory name before testing whether it matches the
filter. Examples:
" filter directories which names end with '.files'
:filter /^.*\.files\/$/
" filter files which names end with '.d'
:filter {*.d}
" filter files and directories which names end with '.o'
:filter /^.*\.o\/?$/
Note: vifm uses extended regular expressions.
The basic vim folding key bindings are used for managing filters.
za toggle visibility of dot files.
zo show dot files.
zm hide dot files.
zf add selected files to permanent filter.
zO reset permanent filter.
zR save and reset all filters.
zr clear local filter.
zM restore all filters (undoes last zR).
zd exclude selection or current file from a custom view. Does
nothing for regular view. For tree view excluding directory ex-
cludes that sub-tree. For compare views zd hides group of adja-
cent identical files, count can be specified as 1 to exclude
just single file or selected items instead. Files excluded this
way are not counted as filtered out and can't be returned unless
view is reloaded.
=regular expression pattern
filter out files that don't match regular expression. Whether
view is updated as regular expression is changed depends on the
value of the 'incsearch' option. This kind of filter is auto-
matically reset when directory is changed.
Tree-related Keys
While some of the keys make sense outside of tree-view, they are most
useful in trees.
[z go to first sibling of current entry.
]z go to last sibling of current entry.
zj go to next directory sibling of current entry or do nothing.
zk go to previous directory sibling of current entry or do nothing.
zx toggle fold under the cursor or parent entry of the current file
if cursor is not on a directory.
Other Normal Mode Keys
[count]:
enter command line mode. [count] generates range.
q: open external editor to prompt for command-line command. See
"Command line editing" section for details.
q/ open external editor to prompt for search pattern to be searched
in forward direction. See "Command line editing" section for
details.
q? open external editor to prompt for search pattern to be searched
in backward direction. See "Command line editing" section for
details.
q= open external editor to prompt for filter pattern. See "Command
line editing" section for details. Unlike other q{x} commands
this one doesn't work in Visual mode.
[count]!! and [count]!<selector>
enter command line mode with entered ! command. [count] modi-
fies range.
Ctrl-O go backwards through directory history of current view. Nonex-
istent directories are automatically skipped.
Ctrl-I if 'cpoptions' contains "t" flag, <tab> and <c-i> switch active
pane just like <space> does, otherwise it goes forward through
directory history of current view. Nonexistent directories are
automatically skipped.
Ctrl-G show a dialog with detailed information about current file. See
"Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
Shift-Tab
enter view mode (works only after activating view pane with
:view command).
ga calculate directory size. Uses cached directory sizes when pos-
sible for better performance. As a special case calculating
size of ".." entry results in calculation of size of current di-
rectory.
gA like ga, but force update. Ignores old values of directory
sizes.
If file under cursor is selected, each selected item is processed, oth-
erwise only current file is updated.
gf find link destination (like l with 'followlinks' off, but also
finds directories). On Windows additionally follows .lnk-files.
gF Same as gf, but resolves final path of the chain of symbolic
links.
gr only for MS-Windows
same as l key, but tries to run program with administrative
privileges.
av go to visual mode into selection amending state preserving cur-
rent selection.
gv go to visual mode restoring last selection.
[reg]gs
when no register is specified, restore last t selection (similar
to what gv does for visual mode selection). If register is
present, then all files listed in that register and which are
visible in current view are selected.
gu<selector>
make names of selected files lowercase.
[count]guu and [count]gugu
make names of [count] files starting from the current one lower-
case. Without [count] only current file is affected.
gU<selector>
make names of selected files uppercase.
[count]gUU and [count]gUgU
make names of [count] files starting from the current one upper-
case. Without [count] only current file is affected.
e explore file in the current pane.
i handle file (even if it's an executable and 'runexec' option is
set).
cw change word is used to rename a file or files. If multiple
files are selected, behaves as :rename command run without argu-
ments.
cW change WORD is used to change only name of file (without exten-
sion).
cl change link target.
co only for *nix
change file owner.
cg only for *nix
change file group.
[count]cp
change file attributes (permission on *nix and properties on
Windows). If [count] is specified, it's treated as numerical
argument for non-recursive `chmod` command (of the form
[0-7]{3,4}). See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
[count]C
clone file [count] times.
[count]dd or d[count]selector
move selected file or files to trash directory (if 'trash' op-
tion is set, otherwise delete). See "Trash directory" section
below.
[count]DD or D[count]selector
like dd and d<selector>, but omitting trash directory (even when
'trash' option is set).
Y, [count]yy or y[count]selector
yank selected files.
p copy yanked files to the current directory or move the files to
the current directory if they were deleted with dd or :d[elete]
or if the files were yanked from trash directory. See "Trash
directory" section below.
P move the last yanked files. The advantage of using P instead of
d followed by p is that P moves files only once. This isn't im-
portant in case you're moving files in the same file system
where your home directory is, but using P to move files on some
other file system (or file systems, in case you want to move
files from fs1 to fs2 and your home is on fs3) can save your
time.
al put symbolic links with absolute paths.
rl put symbolic links with relative paths.
t select or unselect (tag) the current file.
u undo last change.
Ctrl-R redo last change.
dp in compare view of "ofboth grouppaths" kind, makes corresponding
entry of the other pane equal to the current one. The semantics
is as follows:
- nothing done for identical entries
- if file is missing in current view, its pair gets removed
- if file is missing or differs in other view, it's replaced
- file pairs are defined by matching relative paths
File removal obeys 'trash' option. When the option is enabled,
the operation can be undone/redone (although results won't be
visible automatically).
Unlike in Vim, this operation is performed on a single line
rather than a set of adjacent changes.
do same as dp, but applies changes in the opposite direction.
v or V enter visual mode, clears current selection.
[count]Ctrl-A
increment first number in file name by [count] (1 by default).
[count]Ctrl-X
decrement first number in file name by [count] (1 by default).
ZQ same as :quit!.
ZZ same as :quit.
. repeat last command-line command (not normal mode command) of
this run (does nothing right after startup or :restart command).
The command doesn't depend on command-line history and can be
used with completely disabled history.
( go to previous group. Groups are defined by primary sorting
key. For name and iname members of each group have same first
letter, for all other sorting keys vifm uses size, uid, ...
) go to next group. See ( key description above.
{ speeds up navigation to closest previous entry of the opposite
type by moving to the first file backwards when cursor is on a
directory and to the first directory backwards when cursor is on
a file. This is essentially a special case of ( that is locked
on "dirs".
} same as {, but in forward direction.
[c go to previous mismatched entry in directory comparison view or
do nothing.
]c go to next mismatched entry in directory comparison view or do
nothing.
[d go to previous directory entry or do nothing.
]d go to next directory entry or do nothing.
[r same as :siblprev.
]r same as :siblnext.
[R same as :siblprev!.
]R same as :siblnext!.
[s go to previous selected entry or do nothing.
]s go to next selected entry or do nothing.
Using Count
You can use count with commands like yy.
[count]yy
yank count files starting from current cursor position downward.
Or you can use count with motions passed to y, d or D.
d[count]j
delete (count + 1) files starting from current cursor position
upward.
Registers
vifm supports multiple registers for temporary storing list of yanked
or deleted files.
Registers should be specified by hitting double quote key followed by a
register name. Count is specified after register name. By default
commands use unnamed register, which has double quote as its name.
Though all commands accept registers, most of commands ignores them
(for example H or Ctrl-U). Other commands can fill register or append
new files to it.
Presently vifm supports ", _, a-z and A-Z characters as register names.
As mentioned above " is unnamed register and has special meaning of the
default register. Every time when you use named registers (a-z and A-
Z) unnamed register is updated to contain same list of files as the
last used register.
_ is black hole register. It can be used for writing, but its list is
always empty.
Registers with names from a to z and from A to Z are named ones. Low-
ercase registers are cleared before adding new files, while uppercase
aren't and should be used to append new files to the existing file list
of appropriate lowercase register (A for a, B for b, ...).
Registers can be changed on :empty command if they contain files under
trash directory (see "Trash directory" section below).
Registers do not contain one file more than once.
Example:
"a2yy
puts names of two files to register a (and to the unnamed register),
"Ad
removes one file and append its name to register a (and to the unnamed
register),
p or "ap or "Ap
inserts previously yanked and deleted files into current directory.
Selectors
y, d, D, !, gu and gU commands accept selectors. You can combine them
with any of selectors below to quickly remove or yank several files.
Most of selectors are like vi motions: j, k, gg, G, H, L, M, %, f, F,
;, comma, ', ^, 0 and $. But there are some additional ones.
a all files in current view.
s selected files.
S all files except selected.
Examples:
- dj - delete file under cursor and one below;
- d2j - delete file under cursor and two below;
- y6gg - yank all files from cursor position to 6th file in the list.
When you pass a count to whole command and its selector they are multi-
plied. So:
- 2d2j - delete file under cursor and four below;
- 2dj - delete file under cursor and two below;
- 2y6gg - yank all files from cursor position to 12th file in the
list.
Visual Mode
Visual mode has two generic operating submodes:
- plain selection as it is in Vim;
- selection editing submode.
Both modes select files in range from cursor position at which visual
mode was entered to current cursor position (let's call it "selection
region"). Each of two borders can be adjusted by swapping them via "o"
or "O" keys and updating cursor position with regular cursor motion
keys. Obviously, once initial cursor position is altered this way,
real start position becomes unavailable.
Plain Vim-like visual mode starts with cleared selection, which is not
restored on rejecting selection ("Escape", "Ctrl-C", "v", "V"). Con-
trary to it, selection editing doesn't clear previously selected files
and restores them after reject. Accepting selection by performing an
operation on selected items (e.g. yanking them via "y") moves cursor to
the top of current selection region (not to the top most selected file
of the view).
In turn, selection editing supports three types of editing (look at
statusbar to know which one is currently active):
- append - amend selection by selecting elements in selection region;
- remove - amend selection by deselecting elements in selection re-
gion;
- invert - amend selection by inverting selection of elements in se-
lection region.
No matter how you activate selection editing it starts in "append".
One can switch type of operation (in the order given above) via "Ctrl-
G" key.
Almost all normal mode keys work in visual mode, but instead of accept-
ing selectors they operate on selected items.
Enter save selection and go back to normal mode not moving cursor.
av leave visual mode if in amending mode (restores previous selec-
tion), otherwise switch to amending selection mode.
gv restore previous visual selection.
v, V, Ctrl-C or Escape
leave visual mode if not in amending mode, otherwise switch to
normal visual selection.
Ctrl-G switch type of amending by round robin scheme: append -> remove
-> invert.
: enter command line mode. Selection is cleared on leaving the
mode.
o switch active selection bound.
O switch active selection bound.
gu, u make names of selected files lowercase.
gU, U make names of selected files uppercase.
cw same as running :rename command without arguments.
View Mode
This mode tries to imitate the less program. List of builtin shortcuts
can be found below. Shortcuts can be customized using :qmap, :qnoremap
and :qunmap command-line commands.
Shift-Tab, Tab, q, Q, ZZ
return to normal mode.
[count]e, [count]Ctrl-E, [count]j, [count]Ctrl-N, [count]Enter
scroll forward one line (or [count] lines).
[count]y, [count]Ctrl-Y, [count]k, [count]Ctrl-K, [count]Ctrl-P
scroll backward one line (or [count] lines).
[count]f, [count]Ctrl-F, [count]Ctrl-V, [count]Space
scroll forward one window (or [count] lines).
[count]b, [count]Ctrl-B, [count]Alt-V
scroll backward one window (or [count] lines).
[count]z
scroll forward one window (and set window to [count]).
[count]w
scroll backward one window (and set window to [count]).
[count]Alt-Space
scroll forward one window, but don't stop at end-of-file.
[count]d, [count]Ctrl-D
scroll forward one half-window (and set half-window to [count]).
[count]u, [count]Ctrl-U
scroll backward one half-window (and set half-window to
[count]).
r, Ctrl-R, Ctrl-L
repaint screen.
R reload view preserving scroll position.
F toggle automatic forwarding. Roughly equivalent to periodic
file reload and scrolling to the bottom. The behaviour is simi-
lar to `tail -F` or F key in less.
a switch to the next viewer. Does nothing for preview constructed
via %q macro.
A switch to the previous viewer. Does nothing for preview con-
structed via %q macro.
i toggle raw mode (ignoring of defined viewers). Does nothing for
preview constructed via %q macro.
[count]/pattern
search forward for ([count]-th) matching line.
[count]?pattern
search backward for ([count]-th) matching line.
[count]n
repeat previous search (for [count]-th occurrence).
[count]N
repeat previous search in reverse direction (for [count]-th oc-
currence).
[count]g, [count]<, [count]Alt-<
scroll to the first line of the file (or line [count]).
[count]G, [count]>, [count]Alt->
scroll to the last line of the file (or line [count]).
[count]p, [count]%
scroll to the beginning of the file (or N percent into file).
v invoke an editor to edit the current file being viewed. The
command for editing is taken from the 'vicmd' or 'vixcmd' option
value and extended with middle line number prepended by a plus
sign and name of the current file.
All "Ctrl-W x" keys work the same was as in Normal mode. Active mode
is automatically changed on navigating among windows. When less-like
mode activated on file preview is left using one by "Ctrl-W x" keys,
its state is stored until another file is displayed using preview (it's
possible to leave the mode, hide preview pane, do something else, then
get back to the file and show preview pane again with previously stored
state in it).
Command line Mode
These keys are available in all submodes of the command line mode: com-
mand, search, prompt and filtering.
Down, Up, Left, Right, Home, End and Delete are extended keys and they
are not available if vifm is compiled with --disable-extended-keys op-
tion.
Esc, Ctrl-C
leave command line mode, cancels input. Cancelled input is
saved into appropriate history and can be recalled later.
Ctrl-M, Enter
execute command and leave command line mode.
Ctrl-I, Tab
complete command or its argument.
Shift-Tab
complete in reverse order.
Ctrl-_ stop completion and return original input.
Ctrl-B, Left
move cursor to the left.
Ctrl-F, Right
move cursor to the right.
Ctrl-A, Home
go to line beginning.
Ctrl-E, End
go to line end.
Alt-B go to the beginning of previous word.
Alt-F go to the end of next word.
Ctrl-U remove characters from cursor position till the beginning of
line.
Ctrl-K remove characters from cursor position till the end of line.
Ctrl-H, Backspace
remove character before the cursor.
Ctrl-D, Delete
remove character under the cursor.
Ctrl-W remove characters from cursor position till the beginning of
previous word.
Alt-D remove characters from cursor position till the beginning of
next word.
Ctrl-T swap the order of current and previous character and move cursor
forward or, if cursor past the end of line, swap the order of
two last characters in the line.
Alt-. insert last part of previous command to current cursor position.
Each next call will insert last part of older command.
Ctrl-G edit command-line content in external editor. See "Command line
editing" section for details.
Ctrl-N recall more recent command-line from history.
Ctrl-P recall older command-line from history.
Up recall more recent command-line from history, that begins as the
current command-line.
Down recall older command-line from history, that begins as the cur-
rent command-line.
Ctrl-] trigger abbreviation expansion.
Pasting special values
The shortcuts listed below insert specified values into current cursor
position. Last key of every shortcut references value that it inserts:
- c - [c]urrent file
- d - [d]irectory path
- e - [e]xtension of a file name
- r - [r]oot part of a file name
- t - [t]ail part of directory path
- a - [a]utomatic filter
- m - [m]anual filter
- = - local filter, which is bound to "=" in normal mode
Values related to filelist in current pane are available through Ctrl-X
prefix, while values from the other pane have doubled Ctrl-X key as
their prefix (doubled Ctrl-X is presumably easier to type than upper-
case letters; it's still easy to remap the keys to correspond to names
of similar macros).
Ctrl-X c
name of the current file of the active pane.
Ctrl-X d
path to the current directory of the active pane.
Ctrl-X e
extension of the current file of the active pane.
Ctrl-X r
name root of current file of the active pane.
Ctrl-X t
the last component of path to the current directory of the ac-
tive pane.
Ctrl-X Ctrl-X c
name of the current file of the inactive pane.
Ctrl-X Ctrl-X d
path to the current directory of the inactive pane.
Ctrl-X Ctrl-X e
extension of the current file of the inactive pane.
Ctrl-X Ctrl-X r
name root of current file of the inactive pane.
Ctrl-X Ctrl-X t
the last component of path to the current directory of the inac-
tive pane.
Ctrl-X a
value of implicit permanent filter (old name "automatic") of the
active pane.
Ctrl-X m
value of explicit permanent filter (old name "manual") of the
active pane.
Ctrl-X =
value of local filter of the active pane.
Ctrl-X /
last pattern from search history.
Command line editing
vifm provides a facility to edit several kinds of data, that is usually
edited in command-line mode, in external editor (using command speci-
fied by 'vicmd' or 'vixcmd' option). This has at least two advantages
over built-in command-line mode:
- one can use full power of Vim to edit text;
- finding and reusing history entries becomes possible.
The facility is supported by four input submodes of the command-line:
- command;
- forward search;
- backward search;
- file rename (see description of cw and cW normal mode keys).
Editing command-line using external editor is activated by the Ctrl-G
shortcut. It's also possible to do almost the same from Normal and
Visual modes using q:, q/ and q? commands.
Temporary file created for the purpose of editing the line has the fol-
lowing structure:
1. First line, which is either empty or contains text already entered
in command-line.
2. 2nd and all other lines with history items starting with the most
recent one. Altering this lines in any way won't change history
items stored by vifm.
After editing application is finished the first line of the file is
taken as the result of operation, when the application returns zero
exit code. If the application returns an error (see :cquit command in
Vim), all the edits made to the file are ignored, but the initial value
of the first line is saved in appropriate history.
More Mode
This is the mode that appears when status bar content is so big that it
doesn't fit on the screen. One can identify the mode by "-- More --"
message at the bottom.
The following keys are handled in this mode:
Enter, Ctrl-J, j or Down
scroll one line down.
Backspace, k or Up
scroll one line up.
d scroll one page (half of a screen) down.
u scroll one page (half of a screen) up.
Space, f or PageDown
scroll down a screen.
b or PageUp
scroll up a screen.
G scroll to the bottom.
g scroll to the top.
q, Escape or Ctrl-C
quit the mode.
: switch to command-line mode.
Commands
Commands are executed with :command_name<Enter>
Commented out lines should start with the double quote symbol ("),
which may be preceded by whitespace characters intermixed with colons.
Inline comments can be added at the end of the line after double quote
symbol, only last line of a multi-line command can contain such com-
ment. Not all commands support inline comments as their syntax con-
flicts with names of registers and fields where double quotes are al-
lowed.
Most of the commands have two forms: complete and the short one. Exam-
ple:
:noh[lsearch]
This means the complete command is nohlsearch, and the short one is
noh.
Most of command-line commands completely reset selection in the current
view. However, there are several exceptions:
- `:invert s` most likely leaves some files selected;
- :normal command (when it doesn't leave command-line mode);
- :if and :else commands don't affect selection on successful execu-
tion.
'|' can be used to separate commands, so you can give multiple commands
in one line. If you want to use '|' in an argument, precede it with
'\'.
These commands see '|' as part of their arguments even when it's es-
caped:
:[range]!
:autocmd
:cabbrev
:cmap
:cnoreabbrev
:cnoremap
:command
:dmap
:dnoremap
:filetype
:fileviewer
:filextype
:map
:mmap
:mnoremap
:nmap
:nnoremap
:noremap
:normal
:qmap
:qnoremap
:vmap
:vnoremap
:wincmd
:windo
:winrun
To be able to use another command after one of these, wrap it with the
:execute command. An example:
if filetype('.') == 'reg' | execute '!!echo regular file' | endif
:[count]
:number
move to the file number.
:12 would move to the 12th file in the list.
:0 move to the top of the list.
:$ move to the bottom of the list.
:[count]command
The only builtin :[count]command are :[count]d[elete] and
:[count]y[ank].
:d3 would delete three files starting at the current file position
moving down.
:3d would delete one file at the third line in the list.
:command [args]
:[range]!program
execute command via shell. Accepts macros.
:[range]!command &
same as above, but the command is run in the background using vifm's
means.
Programs that write to stderr create error dialogs showing errors of
the command.
Note the space before ampersand symbol, if you omit it, command will be
run in the background using job control of your shell.
Accepts macros.
:!!
:[range]!!command
same as :!, but pauses before returning.
:!! repeat the last command.
:alink
:[range]alink[!?]
create absolute symbolic links to files in directory of inactive
view. With "?" prompts for destination file names in an edi-
tor. "!" forces overwrite.
:[range]alink[!] path
create absolute symbolic links to files in directory specified
by the path (absolute or relative to directory of inactive
view).
:[range]alink[!] name1 name2...
create absolute symbolic links of files in directory of other
view giving each next link a corresponding name from the argu-
ment list.
:apropos
:apropos keyword...
create a menu of items returned by the apropos command. Select-
ing an item in the menu opens corresponding man page. By de-
fault the command relies on the external "apropos" utility,
which can be customized by altering value of the 'aproposprg'
option. See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:autocmd
:au[tocmd] {event} {pat} {cmd}
register autocommand for the {event}, which can be:
- DirEnter - triggered after directory is changed
Event name is case insensitive.
{pat} is a comma-separated list of modified globs patterns,
which can contain tilde or environment variables. All paths use
slash ('/') as directory separator. The pattern can start with
a '!', which negates it. Patterns that do not contain slashes
are matched against the last item of the path only (e.g. "dir"
in "/path/dir"). Literal comma can be entered by doubling it.
Two modifications to globs matching are as follows:
- * - never matches a slash (i.e., can signify single direc-
tory level)
- ** - matches any character (i.e., can match path of arbi-
trary depth)
{cmd} is a :command or several of them separated with '|'.
Examples of patterns:
- conf.d - matches conf.d directory anywhere
- *.d - matches directories ending with ".d" anywhere
- **.git - matches something.git, but not .git anywhere
- **/.git/** - matches /path/.git/objects, but not /path/.git
- **/.git/**/ - matches /path/.git/ only (because of trailing
slash)
- /etc/* - matches /etc/conf.d/, /etc/X11, but not
/etc/X11/fs
- /etc/**/*.d - matches /etc/conf.d, /etc/X11/conf.d, etc.
- /etc/**/* - matches /etc/ itself and any file below it
- /etc/**/** - matches /etc/ itself and any file below it
:au[tocmd] [{event}] [{pat}]
list those autocommands that match given event-pattern combina-
tion.
{event} and {pat} can be omitted to list all autocommands. To
list any autocommands for specific pattern one can use * place-
holder in place of {event}.
:au[tocmd]! [{event}] [{pat}]
remove autocommands that match given event-pattern combination.
Syntax is the same as for listing above.
:apropos
repeat last :apropos command.
:bmark
:bmark tag1 [tag2 [tag3...]]
bookmark current directory with specified tags.
:bmark! path tag1 [tag2 [tag3...]]
same as :bmark, but allows bookmarking specific path instead of
current directory. This is for use in vifmrc and for bookmark-
ing files.
Path can contain macros that expand to single path (%c, %C, %d,
%D) or those that can expand to multiple paths, but contain only
one (%f, %F, %rx). The latter is done for convenience on using
the command interactively. Complex macros that include spaces
(e.g. "%c:gs/ /_") should be escaped.
:bmarks
:bmarks
display all bookmarks in a menu.
:bmarks [tag1 [tag2...]]
display menu of bookmarks that include all of the specified
tags. See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:bmgo
:bmgo [tag1 [tag2...]]
when there are more than one match acts exactly like :bmarks,
otherwise navigates to single match immediately (and fails if
there is no match).
:cabbrev
:ca[bbrev]
display menu of command-line mode abbreviations. See "Menus and
dialogs" section for controls.
:ca[bbrev] lhs-prefix
display command-line mode abbreviations which left-hand side
starts with specified prefix.
:ca[bbrev] lhs rhs
register new or overwrites existing abbreviation for command-
line mode. rhs can contain spaces and any special sequences ac-
cepted in rhs of mappings (see "Mappings" section below). Ab-
breviations are expanded non-recursively.
:cnoreabbrev
:cnorea[bbrev]
display menu of command-line mode abbreviations. See "Menus and
dialogs" section for controls.
:cnorea[bbrev] lhs-prefix
display command-line mode abbreviations which left-hand side
starts with specified prefix.
:cnorea[bbrev] lhs rhs
same as :cabbrev, but mappings in rhs are ignored during expan-
sion.
:cd
:cd or :cd ~ or :cd $HOME
change to home directory.
:cd - go to the last visited directory.
:cd ~/dir
change directory to ~/dir.
:cd /curr/dir /other/dir
change directory of the current pane to /curr/dir and directory
of the other pane to /other/dir. Relative paths are assumed to
be relative to directory of current view. Command won't fail if
one of directories is invalid. All forms of the command accept
macros.
:cd! /dir
same as :cd /dir /dir.
:cds
:cds[!] pattern string
navigate to path obtained by substituting first match in current
path. Arguments can include slashes, but starting first argu-
ment with a separator will activate below form of the command.
Specifying "!" changes directory of both panes.
Available flags:
- i - ignore case (the 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' options are not
used)
- I - don't ignore case (the 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' options are
not used)
:cds[!]/pattern/string/[flags]
same as above, but with :substitute-like syntax. Other punctua-
tion characters can be used as separators.
:change
:c[hange]
show a dialog to alter properties of files.
:chmod
:[range]chmod
display file attributes (permission on *nix and properties on
Windows) change dialog.
:[range]chmod[!] arg...
only for *nix
change permissions for files. See `man 1 chmod` for arg format.
"!" means set permissions recursively.
:chown
:[range]chown
only for *nix
same as co key in normal mode.
:[range]chown [user][:][group]
only for *nix
change owner and/or group of files. Operates on directories re-
cursively.
:clone
:[range]clone[!?]
clones files in current directory. With "?" vifm will open vi
to edit file names. "!" forces overwrite. Macros are expanded.
:[range]clone[!] path
clones files to directory specified with the path (absolute or
relative to current directory). "!" forces overwrite. Macros
are expanded.
:[range]clone[!] name1 name2...
clones files in current directory giving each next clone a cor-
responding name from the argument list. "!" forces overwrite.
Macros are expanded.
:colorscheme
:colo[rscheme]?
print current color scheme name on the status bar.
:colo[rscheme]
display a menu with a list of available color schemes. You can
choose primary color scheme here. It is used for view if no di-
rectory specific colorscheme fits current path. It's also used
to set border color (except view titles) and colors in menus and
dialogs. See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:colo[rscheme] color_scheme_name
change primary color scheme to color_scheme_name. In case of
errors (e.g. some colors are not supported by terminal) either
nothing is changed or color scheme is reset to builtin colors to
ensure that TUI is left in a usable state.
:colo[rscheme] color_scheme_name directory
associate directory with the color scheme. The directory argu-
ment can be either absolute or relative path when :colorscheme
command is executed from command line, but mandatory should be
an absolute path when the command is executed in scripts loaded
at startup (until vifm is completely loaded).
:colo[rscheme] color_scheme_name color_scheme_name...
loads the first color scheme in the order given that exists and
is supported by the terminal. If none matches, current one re-
mains unchanged. For example:
" use a separate color scheme for panes which are inside FUSE mounts
execute 'colorscheme in-fuse' &fusehome
:comclear
:comc[lear]
remove all user defined commands.
:command
:com[mand]
display a menu of user commands. See "Menus and dialogs" sec-
tion for controls.
:com[mand] prefix
display user defined commands that start with the prefix.
:com[mand] name action[ &]
set or redefine a user command.
Use :com[mand]! to overwrite a previously set command of the
same name. Builtin commands can't be redefined.
User commands must start with an upper or lower case letter.
Command name can't contain special symbols except for a single
trailing '?' or '!'. Numbers are allowed provided that they
don't cause parsing ambiguity (no command name prefix that pre-
cedes a digit can match an existing command unless it has a
digit in the same place), for example:
" good
:command mp3 command
" good
:command mp4 command
:command mp3! command
:command mp4? command
" bad
:command mp command
:command mp44 command
" good
:command mp4c command
User commands are run in a shell by default (see below for syn-
tax of other options). To run a command in the background you
must mark it as a background command by adding " &" after the
command's action (e.g., `:com rm rm %f &`).
User commands of all kinds have macros expanded in them. See
"Command macros" section for more information.
:com[mand] name /pattern
set search pattern.
:com[mand] name =pattern
set local filter value.
:com[mand] name filter{:filter args}
set file name filter (see :filter command description). For ex-
ample:
" display only audio files
:command onlyaudio filter/.+.\(mp3|wav|mp3|flac|ogg|m4a|wma|ape\)$/i
" display everything except audio files
:command noaudio filter!/.+.\(mp3|wav|mp3|flac|ogg|m4a|wma|ape\)$/i
:com[mand] name :commands
set kind of an alias for internal commands (like in a shell).
Passes range given to alias to an aliased command, so running
:%cp after
:command cp :copy %a
equals
:%copy
:compare
:compare [byname | bysize | bycontents | listall | listunique |
listdups | ofboth | ofone | groupids | grouppaths | skipempty]...
compare files in one or two views according to the arguments.
The default is "bycontents listall ofboth grouppaths". See
"Compare views" section below for details. Diff structure is
incompatible with alternative representations, so values of
'lsview' and 'millerview' options are ignored.
:copen
:cope[n]
opens menu with contents of the last displayed menu with naviga-
tion to files by default, if any.
:copy
:[range]co[py][!?][ &]
copy files to directory of other view. With "?" prompts for
destination file names in an editor. "!" forces overwrite.
:[range]co[py][!] path[ &]
copy files to directory specified with the path (absolute or
relative to directory of other view). "!" forces overwrite.
:[range]co[py][!] name1 name2...[ &]
copy files to directory of other view giving each next file a
corresponding name from the argument list. "!" forces over-
write.
:cquit
:cq[uit][!]
same as :quit, but also aborts directory choosing via
--choose-dir (empties output file) and returns non-zero exit
code.
:cunabbrev
:cuna[bbrev] lhs
unregister command-line mode abbreviation by its lhs.
:cuna[bbrev] rhs
unregister command-line mode abbreviation by its rhs, so that
abbreviation could be removed even after expansion.
:delbmarks
:delbmarks
remove bookmarks from current directory.
:delbmarks tag1 [tag2 [tag3...]]
remove set of bookmarks that include all of the specified tags.
:delbmarks!
remove all bookmarks.
:delbmarks! path1 [path2 [path3...]]
remove bookmarks of listed paths.
:delcommand
:delc[ommand] user_command
remove user defined command named user_command.
:delete
:[range]d[elete][!][ &]
delete selected file or files. "!" means complete removal
(omitting trash).
:[range]d[elete][!] [reg] [count][ &]
delete selected or [count] files to the reg register. "!" means
complete removal (omitting trash).
:delmarks
:delm[arks]!
delete all marks.
:delm[arks] marks ...
delete specified marks, each argument is treated as a set of
marks.
:delsession
:delsession
delete specified session if it was stored previously. Deleting
current session doesn't detach it.
:display
:di[splay]
display menu with registers content.
:di[splay] list ...
display the contents of the numbered and named registers that
are mentioned in list (for example "az to display "", "a and "z
content).
:dirs
:dirs display directory stack in a menu. See "Menus and dialogs" sec-
tion for controls.
:echo
:ec[ho] [<expr>...]
evaluate each argument as an expression and output them sepa-
rated with a space. See help on :let command for a definition
of <expr>.
:edit
:[range]e[dit] [file...]
open selected or passed file(s) in editor. Macros and environ-
ment variables are expanded.
:else
:el[se]
execute commands until next matching :endif if all other condi-
tions didn't match. See also help on :if and :endif commands.
:elseif
:elsei[f] {expr1}
execute commands until next matching :elseif, :else or :endif if
conditions of previous :if and :elseif branches were evaluated
to zero. See also help on :if and :endif commands.
:empty
:empty permanently remove files from all existing non-empty trash di-
rectories (see "Trash directory" section below). Trash directo-
ries which are specified via %r and/or %u also get deleted com-
pletely. Also remove all operations from undolist that have no
sense after :empty and remove all records about files located
inside directories from all registers. Removal is performed as
background task with undetermined amount of work and can be
checked via :jobs menu.
:endif
:en[dif]
end conditional block. See also help on :if and :else commands.
:execute
:exe[cute] [<expr>...]
evaluate each argument as an expression and join results sepa-
rated by a space to get a single string which is then executed
as a command-line command. See help on :let command for a defi-
nition of <expr>.
:exit
:exi[t][!]
same as :quit.
:file
:f[ile][ &]
display menu of programs set for the file type of the current
file. " &" forces running associated program in background.
See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:f[ile] arg[ &]
run associated command that begins with the arg skipping opening
menu. " &" forces running associated program in background.
:filetype
:filet[ype] pattern-list [{descr}]def_prog[ &],[{descr}]prog2[ &],...
associate given program list to each of the patterns. Associ-
ated program (command) is used by handlers of l and Enter keys
(and also in the :file menu). If you need to insert comma into
command just double it (",,"). Space followed by an ampersand
as two last characters of a command means running of the command
in the background. Optional description can be given to each
command to ease understanding of what command will do in the
:file menu. Vifm will try the rest of the programs for an asso-
ciation when the default isn't found. When program entry
doesn't contain any of vifm macros, name of current file is ap-
pended as if program entry ended with %c macro on *nix and %"c
on Windows. On Windows path to executables containing spaces
can (and should be for correct work with such paths) be double
quoted. See "Patterns" section below for pattern definition and
"Selection" section for how selection is handled. See also "Au-
tomatic FUSE mounts" section below. Example for zip archives
and several actions:
filetype *.zip,*.jar,*.war,*.ear
\ {Mount with fuse-zip}
\ FUSE_MOUNT|fuse-zip %SOURCE_FILE %DESTINATION_DIR,
\ {View contents}
\ zip -sf %c | less,
\ {Extract here}
\ tar -xf %c,
Note that on OS X when `open` is used to call an app, vifm is
unable to check whether that app is actually available. So if
automatic skipping of programs that aren't there is desirable,
`open` should be replaced with an actual command.
:filet[ype] filename
list (in menu mode) currently registered patterns that match
specified file name. Same as ":filextype filename".
:filextype
:filex[type] pattern-list [{ description }] def_program,program2,...
same as :filetype, but this command is ignored if not running in
X. In X :filextype is equal to :filetype. See "Patterns" sec-
tion below for pattern definition and "Selection" section for
how selection is handled. See also "Automatic FUSE mounts" sec-
tion below.
For example, consider the following settings (the order might
seem strange, but it's for the demonstration purpose):
filetype *.html,*.htm
\ {View in lynx}
\ lynx
filextype *.html,*.htm
\ {Open with dwb}
\ dwb %f %i &,
filetype *.html,*.htm
\ {View in links}
\ links
filextype *.html,*.htm
\ {Open with firefox}
\ firefox %f &,
\ {Open with uzbl}
\ uzbl-browser %f %i &,
If you're using vifm inside a terminal emulator that is running
in graphical environment (when X is used on *nix; always on Win-
dows), vifm attempts to run application in this order:
1. lynx
2. dwb
3. links
4. firefox
5. uzbl
If there is no graphical environment (checked by presence of
non-empty $DISPLAY or $WAYLAND_DISPLAY environment variable on
*nix; never happens on Windows), the list will look like:
1. lynx
2. links
Just as if all :filextype commands were not there.
The purpose of such differentiation is to allow comfortable use
of vifm with same settings in desktop environment/through remote
connection (SSH)/in native console.
Note that on OS X $DISPLAY isn't defined unless you define it,
so :filextype should be used only if you set $DISPLAY in some
way.
:filext[ype] filename
list (in menu mode) currently registered patterns that match
specified file name. Same as ":filetype filename".
:fileviewer
:filev[iewer] pattern-list command1,command2,...
register specified list of commands as viewers for each of the
patterns. Viewer is a command which output is captured and dis-
played in one of the panes of vifm after pressing "e" or running
:view command. When the command doesn't contain any of vifm
macros, name of current file is appended as if command ended
with %c macro. Comma escaping and missing commands processing
rules as for :filetype apply to this command. See "Patterns"
section below for pattern definition. Supports Lua handlers.
Example for zip archives:
fileviewer *.zip,*.jar,*.war,*.ear zip -sf %c, echo "No zip to preview:"
:filev[iewer] filename
list (in menu mode) currently registered patterns that match
specified filename.
:filter
:filter[!] {pattern}
filter files matching the pattern out of directory listings.
'!' controls state of filter inversion after updating filter
value (see also 'cpoptions' description). Filter is matched
case sensitively on *nix and case insensitively on Windows. See
"File Filters" and "Patterns" sections.
Example:
" filter all files ending in .o from the filelist.
:filter /.o$/
:filter[!] {empty-pattern}
same as above, but use last search pattern as pattern value.
Example:
:filter //I
:filter
reset filter (set it to an empty string) and show all files.
:filter!
same as :invert.
:filter?
show information on local, name and auto filters.
:find
:[range]fin[d] pattern
display results of find command in the menu. Searches among se-
lected files if any. Accepts macros. By default the command
relies on the external "find" utility, which can be customized
by altering value of the 'findprg' option.
:[range]fin[d] -opt...
same as :find above, but user defines all find arguments.
Searches among selected files if any.
:[range]fin[d] path -opt...
same as :find above, but user defines all find arguments. Ig-
nores selection and range.
:[range]fin[d]
repeat last :find command.
:finish
:fini[sh]
stop sourcing a script. Can only be used in a vifm script file.
This is a quick way to skip the rest of the file.
:goto
:go[to]
change directory if necessary and put specified path under the
cursor. The path should be existing non-root path. Macros and
environment variables are expanded.
:grep
:[range]gr[ep][!] pattern
will show results of grep command in the menu. Add "!" to re-
quest inversion of search (look for lines that do not match pat-
tern). Searches among selected files if any and no range given.
Ignores binary files by default. By default the command relies
on the external "grep" utility, which can be customized by al-
tering value of the 'grepprg' option.
:[range]gr[ep][!] -opt...
same as :grep above, but user defines all grep arguments, which
are not escaped. Searches among selected files if any.
:[range]gr[ep][!]
repeat last :grep command. "!" of this command inverts "!" in
repeated command.
:help
:h[elp]
show the help file.
:h[elp] argument
is the same as using ':h argument' in vim. Use vifm-<something>
to get help on vifm (tab completion works). This form of the
command doesn't work when 'vimhelp' option is off.
:hideui
:hideui
hide interface to show previous commands' output.
:highlight
:hi[ghlight]
display information about all highlight groups active at the mo-
ment.
:hi[ghlight] clear
reset all highlighting to builtin defaults and removed all file-
name-specific rules.
:hi[ghlight] clear ( {pat1,pat2,...} | /regexp/ )
remove specified rule.
:hi[ghlight] ( group-name | {pat1,pat2,...} | /regexp/ )
display information on given highlight group or file name pat-
tern of color scheme used in the active view.
:hi[ghlight] ( group-name | {pat1,pat2,...} | /regexp/[iI] )
cterm=style | ctermfg=color | ctermbg=color | gui=style | guifg=color |
guibg=color
set style (cterm, gui), foreground (ctermfg, guifg) and/or back-
ground (ctermbg, guibg) parameters of highlight group or file
name pattern for color scheme used in the active view.
All style values as well as color names are case insensitive.
Available style values (some of them can be combined):
- bold
- underline
- reverse or inverse
- standout
- italic (on unsupported systems becomes reverse)
- combine - add attributes of current group to attributes of the par-
ent in group hierarchy (see below) instead of replacing them
- none
Available group-name values:
- Win - color of all windows (views, dialogs, menus) and default color
for their content (e.g. regular files in views)
- AuxWin - color of auxiliary areas of windows
- OtherWin - color of inactive pane
- Border - color of vertical parts of the border
- TabLine - tab line color (for 'tabscope' set to "global")
- TabLineSel - color of the tip of selected tab (regardless of 'tab-
scope')
- TopLine - top line color of the other pane
- TopLineSel - top line color of the current pane
- CmdLine - the command line/status bar color
- ErrorMsg - color of error messages in the status bar
- StatusLine - color of the line above the status bar
- JobLine - color of job line that appears above the status line
- WildMenu - color of the wild menu items
- SuggestBox - color of key suggestion box
- CurrLine - line at cursor position in active view
- OtherLine - line at cursor position in inactive view
- OddLine - color of every second entry line in a pane
- LineNr - line number column of views
- Selected - color of selected files
- Directory - color of directories
- Link - color of symbolic links in the views
- BrokenLink - color of broken symbolic links
- HardLink - color of regular files with more than one hard link
- Socket - color of sockets
- Device - color of block and character devices
- Executable - color of executable files
- Fifo - color of fifo pipes
- CmpMismatch - color of mismatched files in side-by-side comparison
by path
- User1..User9 - 9 colors which can be used via %* 'statusline' macro
Available colors:
- -1 or default or none - default or transparent
- black and lightblack
- red and lightred
- green and lightgreen
- yellow and lightyellow
- blue and lightblue
- magenta and lightmagenta
- cyan and lightcyan
- white and lightwhite
- 0-255 - corresponding colors from 256-color palette (for ctermfg and
ctermbg)
- #rrggbb - direct ("gui", "true", 24-bit) color in hex-notation, each
of the three compontents are in the range 0x00 to 0xff (for guifg and
guibg)
Light versions of colors are regular colors with bold attribute set au-
tomatically in terminals that have less than 16 colors. So order of
arguments of :highlight command is important and it's better to put
"cterm" in front of others to prevent it from overwriting attributes
set by "ctermfg" or "ctermbg" arguments.
For convenience of color scheme authors xterm-like names for 256 color
palette is also supported. The mapping is taken from
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Xterm256_color_names_for_console_Vim
Duplicated entries were altered by adding an underscore followed by nu-
merical suffix.
0 Black 86 Aquamarine1 172 Orange3
1 Red 87 DarkSlateGray2 173 LightSalmon3_2
2 Green 88 DarkRed_2 174 LightPink3
3 Yellow 89 DeepPink4_2 175 Pink3
4 Blue 90 DarkMagenta 176 Plum3
5 Magenta 91 DarkMagenta_2 177 Violet
6 Cyan 92 DarkViolet 178 Gold3_2
7 White 93 Purple 179 LightGoldenrod3
8 LightBlack 94 Orange4_2 180 Tan
9 LightRed 95 LightPink4 181 MistyRose3
10 LightGreen 96 Plum4 182 Thistle3
11 LightYellow 97 MediumPurple3 183 Plum2
12 LightBlue 98 MediumPurple3_2 184 Yellow3_2
13 LightMagenta 99 SlateBlue1 185 Khaki3
14 LightCyan 100 Yellow4 186 LightGoldenrod2
15 LightWhite 101 Wheat4 187 LightYellow3
16 Grey0 102 Grey53 188 Grey84
17 NavyBlue 103 LightSlateGrey 189 LightSteelBlue1
18 DarkBlue 104 MediumPurple 190 Yellow2
19 Blue3 105 LightSlateBlue 191 DarkOliveGreen1
20 Blue3_2 106 Yellow4_2 192 DarkOliveG-
reen1_2
21 Blue1 107 DarkOliveGreen3 193 DarkSeaGreen1_2
22 DarkGreen 108 DarkSeaGreen 194 Honeydew2
23 DeepSkyBlue4 109 LightSkyBlue3 195 LightCyan1
24 DeepSkyBlue4_2 110 LightSkyBlue3_2 196 Red1
25 DeepSkyBlue4_3 111 SkyBlue2 197 DeepPink2
26 DodgerBlue3 112 Chartreuse2_2 198 DeepPink1
27 DodgerBlue2 113 DarkOliveGreen3_2 199 DeepPink1_2
28 Green4 114 PaleGreen3_2 200 Magenta2_2
29 SpringGreen4 115 DarkSeaGreen3 201 Magenta1
30 Turquoise4 116 DarkSlateGray3 202 OrangeRed1
31 DeepSkyBlue3 117 SkyBlue1 203 IndianRed1
32 DeepSkyBlue3_2 118 Chartreuse1 204 IndianRed1_2
33 DodgerBlue1 119 LightGreen_2 205 HotPink
34 Green3 120 LightGreen_3 206 HotPink_2
35 SpringGreen3 121 PaleGreen1 207 MediumOrchid1_2
36 DarkCyan 122 Aquamarine1_2 208 DarkOrange
37 LightSeaGreen 123 DarkSlateGray1 209 Salmon1
38 DeepSkyBlue2 124 Red3 210 LightCoral
39 DeepSkyBlue1 125 DeepPink4_3 211 PaleVioletRed1
40 Green3_2 126 MediumVioletRed 212 Orchid2
41 SpringGreen3_2 127 Magenta3 213 Orchid1
42 SpringGreen2 128 DarkViolet_2 214 Orange1
43 Cyan3 129 Purple_2 215 SandyBrown
44 DarkTurquoise 130 DarkOrange3 216 LightSalmon1
45 Turquoise2 131 IndianRed 217 LightPink1
46 Green1 132 HotPink3 218 Pink1
47 SpringGreen2_2 133 MediumOrchid3 219 Plum1
48 SpringGreen1 134 MediumOrchid 220 Gold1
49 MediumSpringGreen 135 MediumPurple2 221 LightGolden-
rod2_2
50 Cyan2 136 DarkGoldenrod 222 LightGolden-
rod2_3
51 Cyan1 137 LightSalmon3 223 NavajoWhite1
52 DarkRed 138 RosyBrown 224 MistyRose1
53 DeepPink4 139 Grey63 225 Thistle1
54 Purple4 140 MediumPurple2_2 226 Yellow1
55 Purple4_2 141 MediumPurple1 227 LightGoldenrod1
56 Purple3 142 Gold3 228 Khaki1
57 BlueViolet 143 DarkKhaki 229 Wheat1
58 Orange4 144 NavajoWhite3 230 Cornsilk1
59 Grey37 145 Grey69 231 Grey100
60 MediumPurple4 146 LightSteelBlue3 232 Grey3
61 SlateBlue3 147 LightSteelBlue 233 Grey7
62 SlateBlue3_2 148 Yellow3 234 Grey11
63 RoyalBlue1 149 DarkOliveGreen3_3 235 Grey15
64 Chartreuse4 150 DarkSeaGreen3_2 236 Grey19
65 DarkSeaGreen4 151 DarkSeaGreen2 237 Grey23
66 PaleTurquoise4 152 LightCyan3 238 Grey27
67 SteelBlue 153 LightSkyBlue1 239 Grey30
68 SteelBlue3 154 GreenYellow 240 Grey35
69 CornflowerBlue 155 DarkOliveGreen2 241 Grey39
70 Chartreuse3 156 PaleGreen1_2 242 Grey42
71 DarkSeaGreen4_2 157 DarkSeaGreen2_2 243 Grey46
72 CadetBlue 158 DarkSeaGreen1 244 Grey50
73 CadetBlue_2 159 PaleTurquoise1 245 Grey54
74 SkyBlue3 160 Red3_2 246 Grey58
75 SteelBlue1 161 DeepPink3 247 Grey62
76 Chartreuse3_2 162 DeepPink3_2 248 Grey66
77 PaleGreen3 163 Magenta3_2 249 Grey70
78 SeaGreen3 164 Magenta3_3 250 Grey74
79 Aquamarine3 165 Magenta2 251 Grey78
80 MediumTurquoise 166 DarkOrange3_2 252 Grey82
81 SteelBlue1_2 167 IndianRed_2 253 Grey85
82 Chartreuse2 168 HotPink3_2 254 Grey89
83 SeaGreen2 169 HotPink2 255 Grey93
84 SeaGreen1 170 Orchid
85 SeaGreen1_2 171 MediumOrchid1
There are two colors (foreground and background) and only one bold at-
tribute. Thus single bold attribute affects both colors when "reverse"
attribute is used in vifm run inside terminal emulator. At the same
time linux native console can handle boldness of foreground and back-
ground colors independently, but for consistency with terminal emula-
tors this is available only implicitly by using light versions of col-
ors. This behaviour might be changed in the future.
Although vifm supports 256 colors in a sense they are supported by UI
drawing library, whether you will be able to use all of them highly de-
pends on your terminal. To set up terminal properly, make sure that
$TERM in the environment you run vifm is set to name of 256-color ter-
minal (on *nixes it can also be set via X resources), e.g.
xterm-256color. One can find list of available terminal names by list-
ing /usr/lib/terminfo/. Number of colors supported by terminal with
current settings can be checked via "tput colors" command.
In order to use 24-bit colors one needs a terminal that supports them,
corresponding terminfo record (probably ends in "-direct" like in
"xterm-direct") and $TERM pointing to it. When vifm detects direct
color support "cterm*" values are ignored for groups which have at
least one of "gui*" values set, otherwise they are used after translat-
ing via a builtin palette.
Here is the hierarchy of highlight groups, which you need to know for
using transparency:
JobLine
SuggestBox
StatusLine
WildMenu
User1..User9
Border
CmdLine
ErrorMsg
Win
OtherWin
AuxWin
OddLine
File name specific highlights
Directory
Link
BrokenLink
HardLink
Socket
Device
Fifo
Executable
Selected
CurrLine
LineNr (in active pane)
OtherLine
LineNr (in inactive pane)
TopLine
TopLineSel
TabLineSel (for pane tabs)
User1..User9
TabLine
TabLineSel
User1..User9
"none" means default terminal color for highlight groups at the first
level of the hierarchy and transparency for all others.
Here file name specific highlights mean those configured via globs ({})
or regular expressions (//). At most one of them is applied per file
entry, namely the first that matches file name, hence order of :high-
light commands might be important in certain cases.
:history
:his[tory]
display a menu with list of visited directories. See "Menus and
dialogs" section for controls.
:his[tory] x
x can be:
d[ir] or . show directory history.
c[md] or : show command line history.
s[earch] or / show search history and search forward on l
key.
f[search] or / show search history and search forward on l
key.
b[search] or ? show search history and search backward on l
key.
i[nput] or @ show prompt history (e.g. on one file renam-
ing).
fi[lter] or = show filter history (see description of the "="
normal mode command).
See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:histnext
:histnext
same as <c-i>. The main use case for this command is to work
around the common pain point of <tab> and <c-i> being the same
ASCII character: one could alter the terminal emulator settings
to emit, for example, the `F1` keycode when Ctrl-I is pressed,
then `:noremap <f1> :histnext<cr>` in vifm, add "t" flag to the
'cpoptions', and thus have both <c-i> and <tab> working as ex-
pected.
:histprev
:histprev
same as <c-o>.
:if
:if {expr1}
start conditional block. Commands are executed until next
matching :elseif, :else or :endif command if {expr1} evaluates
to non-zero, otherwise they are ignored. See also help on :else
and :endif commands.
Example:
if $TERM == 'screen.linux'
highlight CurrLine ctermfg=lightwhite ctermbg=lightblack
elseif $TERM == 'tmux'
highlight CurrLine cterm=reverse ctermfg=black ctermbg=white
else
highlight CurrLine cterm=bold,reverse ctermfg=black ctermbg=white
endif
:invert
:invert [f]
invert file name filter.
:invert? [f]
show current filter state.
:invert s
invert selection.
:invert o
invert sorting order of the primary sorting key.
:invert? o
show sorting order of the primary sorting key.
:jobs
:jobs display menu of current backgrounded processes. See "Menus and
dialogs" section for controls.
:let
:let $ENV_VAR = <expr>
set an environment variable. Warning: setting environment vari-
able to an empty string on Windows removes it.
:let $ENV_VAR .= <expr>
append value to environment variable.
:let &[l:|g:]opt = <expr>
sets option value.
:let &[l:|g:]opt .= <expr>
append value to string option.
:let &[l:|g:]opt += <expr>
increasing option value, adding sub-values.
:let &[l:|g:]opt -= <expr>
decreasing option value, removing sub-values.
Where <expr> could be a single-quoted string, double-quoted string, an
environment variable, function call or a concatanation of any of them
in any order using the '.' operator. Any whitespace is ignored.
:locate
:locate filename
use "locate" command to create a menu of filenames. Selecting a
file from the menu will reload the current file list in vifm to
show the selected file. By default the command relies on the
external "locate" utility (it's assumed that its database is al-
ready built), which can be customized by altering value of the
'locateprg' option. See "Menus and dialogs" section for con-
trols.
:locate
repeat last :locate command.
:ls
:ls lists windows of active terminal multiplexer (only when terminal
multiplexer is used). This is achieved by issuing proper com-
mand for active terminal multiplexer, thus the list is not han-
dled by vifm.
:lstrash
:lstrash
display a menu with list of files in trash. Each element of the
list is original path of a deleted file, thus the list can con-
tain duplicates. See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:mark
:[range]ma[rk][?] x [/full/path] [filename]
Set mark x (a-zA-Z0-9) at /full/path and filename. By default
current directory is being used. If no filename was given and
/full/path is current directory then last file in [range] is
used. Using of macros is allowed. Question mark will stop com-
mand from overwriting existing marks.
:marks
:marks create a pop-up menu of marks. See "Menus and dialogs" section
for controls.
:marks list ...
display the contents of the marks that are mentioned in list.
:media
:media only for *nix
display media management menu. See "Menus and dialogs" section
for controls. See also 'mediaprg' option.
:messages
:mes[sages]
shows previously given messages (up to 50).
:mkdir
:[line]mkdir[!] dir ...
create directories at specified paths. The [line] can be used
to pick node in a tree-view. "!" means make parent directories
as needed. Macros are expanded.
:move
:[range]m[ove][!?][ &]
move files to directory of other view. With "?" prompts for
destination file names in an editor. "!" forces overwrite.
:[range]m[ove][!] path[ &]
move files to directory specified with the path (absolute or
relative to directory of other view). "!" forces overwrite.
:[range]m[ove][!] name1 name2...[ &]
move files to directory of other view giving each next file a
corresponding name from the argument list. "!" forces over-
write.
:nohlsearch
:noh[lsearch]
clear selection in current pane.
:normal
:norm[al][!] commands
execute normal mode commands. If "!" is used, user defined map-
pings are ignored. Unfinished last command is aborted as if
<esc> or <c-c> was typed. A ":" should be completed as well.
Commands can't start with a space, so put a count of 1 (one) be-
fore it.
:only
:on[ly]
switch to a one window view.
:plugin
:plugin load
loads all plugins. To be used in configuration file to manually
load plugins at an earlier point. The plugins can be loaded
only once, additional calls will do nothing.
:plugin blacklist {plugin}
adds {plugin} to the list of plugins to be ignored.
:plugin whitelist {plugin}
adds {plugin} to the list of plugins to be loaded while ignoring
all other plugins. This list should normally be empty.
:plugins
:plugins
open plugins menu. See "Menus and dialogs" section for con-
trols.
:popd
:popd remove pane directories from stack.
:pushd
:pushd[!] /curr/dir [/other/dir]
add pane directories to stack and process arguments like :cd
command.
:pushd exchange the top two items of the directory stack.
:put
:[line]pu[t][!] [reg] [ &]
put files from specified register (" by default) into current
directory. The [line] can be used to pick node in a tree-view.
"!" moves files "!" moves files from their original location in-
stead of copying them. During this operation no confirmation
dialogs will be shown, all checks are performed beforehand.
:pwd
:pw[d] show the present working directory.
:qall
:qa[ll][!]
exit vifm (add ! to skip saving changes and checking for active
backgrounded commands).
:quit
:q[uit][!]
if there is more than one tab, close the current one, otherwise
exit vifm (add ! to skip saving state and checking for active
backgrounded commands).
:redraw
:redr[aw]
redraw the screen immediately.
:registers
:reg[isters]
display menu with registers content.
:reg[isters] list ...
display the contents of the numbered and named registers that
are mentioned in list (for example "az to display "", "a and "z
content).
:regular
:regular
switch to regular view leaving custom view.
:rename
:[range]rename[!]
rename files by editing their names in an editor. "!" renames
files recursively in subdirectories. See "External Renaming"
section.
:[range]rename name1 name2...
rename each of selected files to a corresponding name.
:restart
:restart
free a lot of things (histories, commands, etc.), reread
vifminfo, vifmrc and session files and run startup commands
passed in the argument list, thus losing all unsaved changes
(e.g. recent history or keys mapped after starting this in-
stance). Session that wasn't yet stored gets reset.
While many things get reset, some basic UI state and current lo-
cations are preserved, including tabs.
:restart full
variation of :restart that makes no attempt to preserve any-
thing.
:restore
:[range]restore
restore file from trash directory, doesn't work outside one of
trash directories. See "Trash directory" section below.
:rlink
:[range]rlink[!?]
create relative symbolic links to files in directory of other
view. With "?" prompts for destination file names in an editor.
"!" forces overwrite.
:[range]rlink[!] path
create relative symbolic links of files in directory specified
with the path (absolute or relative to directory of other view).
"!" forces overwrite.
:[range]rlink[!] name1 name2...
create relative symbolic links of files in directory of other
view giving each next link a corresponding name from the argu-
ment list. "!" forces overwrite.
:screen
:screen
toggle whether to use the terminal multiplexer or not.
A terminal multiplexer uses pseudo terminals to allow multiple
windows to be used in the console or in a single xterm. Start-
ing vifm from terminal multiplexer with appropriate support
turned on will cause vifm to open a new terminal multiplexer
window for each new file edited or program launched from vifm.
This requires screen version 3.9.9 or newer for the screen -X
argument or tmux (1.8 version or newer is recommended).
:screen!
enable integration with terminal multiplexers.
:screen?
display whether integration with terminal multiplexers is en-
abled.
Note: the command is called screen for historical reasons (when tmux
wasn't yet supported) and might be changed in future releases, or get
an alias.
:select
:[range]select
select files in the given range (current file if no range is
given).
:select {pattern}
select files that match specified pattern. Possible {pattern}
forms are described in "Patterns" section below. Trailing slash
for directories is taken into account, so `:select! */ | invert
s` selects only files.
:select //[iI]
same as item above, but reuses last search pattern.
:select !{external command}
select files from the list supplied by external command. Files
are matched by full paths, relative paths are converted to abso-
lute ones beforehand.
:[range]select! [{pattern}]
same as above, but resets previously selected items before pro-
ceeding.
:session
:session?
print name of the current session.
:session
detach current session without saving it. Resets v:session.
:session name
create or load and switch to a session with the specified name.
Name can't contain slashes. Session active at the moment is
saved before the switch. Session is also automatically saved
when quiting the application in usual ways. Sets v:session.
:set
:se[t] display all options that differ from their default value.
:se[t] all
display all options.
:se[t] opt1=val1 opt2='val2' opt3="val3" ...
sets given options. For local options both values are set.
You can use following syntax:
- for all options - option, option? and option&
- for boolean options - nooption, invoption and option!
- for integer options - option=x, option+=x and option-=x
- for string options - option=x and option+=x
- for string list options - option=x, option+=x, option-=x and
option^=x
- for enumeration options - option=x, option+=x and option-=x
- for set options - option=x, option+=x, option-=x and op-
tion^=x
- for charset options - option=x, option+=x, option-=x and op-
tion^=x
the meaning:
- option - turn option on (for boolean) or print its value (for
all others)
- nooption - turn option off
- invoption - invert option state
- option! - invert option state
- option? - print option value
- option& - reset option to its default value
- option=x or option:x - set option to x
- option+=x - add/append x to option
- option-=x - remove (or subtract) x from option
- option^=x - toggle x presence among values of the option
Option name can be prepended and appended by any number of
whitespace characters.
:setglobal
:setg[lobal]
display all global options that differ from their default value.
:setg[lobal] all
display all global options.
:setg[lobal] opt1=val1 opt2='val2' opt3="val3" ...
same as :set, but changes/prints only global options or global
values of local options. Changes to the latter might be not
visible until directory is changed.
:setlocal
:setl[ocal]
display all local options that differ from their default value.
:setl[ocal] all
display all local options.
:setl[ocal] opt1=val1 opt2='val2' opt3="val3" ...
same as :set, but changes/prints only local values of local op-
tions.
:shell
:sh[ell][!]
start a shell in current directory. "!" suppresses spawning
dedicated window of terminal multiplexer for a shell. To make
vifm adaptive to environment it uses $SHELL if it's defined,
otherwise 'shell' value is used.
:siblnext
:[count]siblnext[!]
change directory to [count]th next sibling directory after cur-
rent path using value of global sort option of current pane.
"!" enables wrapping.
For example, say, you're at /boot and root listing starts like
this:
bin/
boot/
dev/
...
Issuing :siblnext will navigate to /dev.
:siblprev
:[count]siblprev[!]
same as :siblnext, but in the opposite direction.
:sort
:sor[t]
display dialog with different sorting methods, where one can se-
lect the primary sorting key. When 'viewcolumns' options is
empty and 'lsview' is off, changing primary sorting key will
also affect view look (in particular the second column of the
view will be changed). See "Menus and dialogs" section for con-
trols.
:source
:so[urce] file
read command-line commands from the file.
:split
:sp[lit]
switch to a two window horizontal view.
:sp[lit]!
toggle horizontal window splitting.
:sp[lit] path
splits the window horizontally to show both file directories.
Also changes other pane to path (absolute or relative to current
directory of active pane).
:stop
:st[op]
suspend vifm (same as pressing Ctrl-Z). Does nothing if this
instance isn't running in a shell. The command exists to allow
mapping to the action of Ctrl-Z.
:substitute
:[range]s[ubstitute]/pattern/string/[flags]
for each file in range replace a match of pattern with string.
String can contain \0...\9 to link to capture groups (\0 - all match,
\1 - first group, etc.).
Pattern is stored in search history.
Available flags:
- i - ignore case (the 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' options are not
used)
- I - don't ignore case (the 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' options are
not used)
- g - substitute all matches in each file name (each g toggles this)
:[range]s[ubstitute]/pattern
substitute pattern with an empty string.
:[range]s[ubstitute]//string/[flags]
use last pattern from search history.
:[range]s[ubstitute]
repeat previous substitution command.
:sync
:sync [relative path]
change the other pane to the current pane directory or to some
path relative to the current directory. Using macros is al-
lowed.
:sync! change the other pane to the current pane directory and synchro-
nize cursor position. If current pane displays custom list of
files, position before entering it is used (current one might
not make any sense).
:sync! [location | cursorpos | localopts | filters | filelist | tree |
all]...
change enumerated properties of the other pane to match corre-
sponding properties of the current pane. Arguments have the
following meanings:
- location - current directory of the pane;
- cursorpos - cursor position (doesn't make sense without "lo-
cation");
- localopts - all local options;
- filters - all filters;
- filelist - list of files for custom view (implies "loca-
tion");
- tree - tree structure for tree view (implies "location");
- all - all of the above.
:tabclose
:tabc[lose]
close current tab, unless it's the only one open at current
scope.
:tabmove
:tabm[ove] [N]
without the argument or with `$` as the argument, current tab
becomes the last tab. With the argument, current tab is moved
after the tab with the specified number. Argument of `0` moves
current tab to the first position.
:tabname
:tabname [name]
set, update or reset (when no argument is provided) name of the
current tab.
:tabnew
:tabnew [path]
create new tab. Accepts optional path for the new tab. Macros
and environment variables are expanded.
:tabnext
:tabn[ext]
switch to the next tab (wrapping around).
:tabn[ext] {n}
go to the tab number {n}. Tab numeration starts with 1.
:tabonly
:tabo[nly]
close all tabs but the current one. Closes pane tabs only at
the active side.
:tabprevious
:tabp[revious]
switch to the previous tab (wrapping around).
:tabp[revious] {n}
go to the {n}-th previous tab. Note that :tabnext handles its
argument differently.
:touch
:[line]touch file...
create files at specified paths. Aborts on errors. Doesn't up-
date time of existing files. The [line] can be used to pick
node in a tree-view. Macros are expanded.
:tr
:[range]tr/pattern/string/
for each file in range transliterate the characters which appear
in pattern to the corresponding character in string. When
string is shorter than pattern, it's padded with its last char-
acter.
:trashes
:trashes
lists all valid trash directories in a menu. Only non-empty and
writable trash directories are shown. This is exactly the list
of directories that are cleared when :empty command is executed.
:trashes?
same as :trashes, but also displays size of each trash direc-
tory.
:tree
:tree turn pane into tree view with current directory as its root.
The tree view is implemented on top of a custom view, but is au-
tomatically kept in sync with file system state and considers
all the filters. Thus the structure corresponds to what one
would see on visiting the directories manually. As a special
case for trees built out of custom view file-system tracking
isn't performed.
To leave tree view go up from its root or use gh at any level of
the tree. Any command that changes directory will also do, in
particular, `:cd ..`.
Tree structure is incompatible with alternative representations,
so values of 'lsview' and 'millerview' options are ignored.
The "depth" argument specifies nesting level on which loading of
subdirectories won't happen (they will be folded). Values start
at 1.
:tree! toggle current view in and out of tree mode.
:undolist
:undol[ist]
display list of latest changes. Use "!" to see actual commands.
See "Menus and dialogs" section for controls.
:unlet
:unl[et][!] $ENV_VAR1 $ENV_VAR2 ...
remove environment variables. Add ! to omit displaying of warn-
ings about nonexistent variables.
:unselect
:[range]unselect
unselect files in the given range (current file if no range is
given).
:unselect {pattern}
unselect files that match specified pattern. Possible {pattern}
forms are described in "Patterns" section below. Trailing slash
for directories is taken into account, so `:unselect */` unse-
lects directories.
:unselect !{external command}
unselect files from the list supplied by external command.
Files are matched by full paths, relative paths are converted to
absolute ones beforehand.
:unselect //[iI]
same as item above, but reuses last search pattern.
:version
:ve[rsion]
show menu with version information.
:vifm
:vifm same as :version.
:view
:vie[w]
toggle on and off the quick file view (preview of file's con-
tents). See also 'quickview' option.
:vie[w]!
turn on quick file view if it's off.
:volumes
:volumes
only for MS-Windows
display menu with volume list. Hitting l (or Enter) key opens
appropriate volume in the current pane. See "Menus and dialogs"
section for controls.
:vsplit
:vs[plit]
switch to a two window vertical view.
:vs[plit]!
toggle window vertical splitting.
:vs[plit] path
split the window vertically to show both file directories. And
changes other pane to path (absolute or relative to current di-
rectory of active pane).
:wincmd
:[count]winc[md] {arg}
same as running Ctrl-W [count] {arg}.
:windo
:windo [command...]
execute command for each pane (same as :winrun % command).
:winrun
:winrun type [command...]
execute command for pane(s), which is determined by type argu-
ment:
- ^ - top-left pane
- $ - bottom-right pane
- % - all panes
- . - current pane
- , - other pane
:write
:w[rite]
write current state to vifminfo and session files (if a session
is active).
:wq
:wq[!] same as :quit, but ! disables only the check of backgrounded
commands, while state of the application is always written.
:wqall
:wqa[ll][!]
same as :qall, but ! disables only the check of backgrounded
commands, while state of the application is always written.
:xall
:xa[ll][!]
same as :qall.
:xit
:x[it][!]
same as :quit.
:yank
:[range]y[ank] [reg] [count]
will yank files to the reg register.
:map lhs rhs
:map lhs rhs
map lhs key sequence to rhs in normal and visual modes.
:map! lhs rhs
map lhs key sequence to rhs in command line mode.
:cmap :dmap :mmap :nmap :qmap
:vmap
:cm[ap] lhs rhs
map lhs to rhs in command line mode.
:dm[ap] lhs rhs
map lhs to rhs in dialog modes.
:mm[ap] lhs rhs
map lhs to rhs in menu mode.
:nm[ap] lhs rhs
map lhs to rhs in normal mode.
:qm[ap] lhs rhs
map lhs to rhs in view mode.
:vm[ap] lhs rhs
map lhs to rhs in visual mode.
:*map
:cm[ap]
list all maps in command line mode.
:dm[ap]
list all maps in dialog modes.
:mm[ap]
list all maps in menu mode.
:nm[ap]
list all maps in normal mode.
:qm[ap]
list all maps in view mode.
:vm[ap]
list all maps in visual mode.
:*map beginning
:cm[ap] beginning
list all maps in command line mode that start with the begin-
ning.
:dm[ap] beginning
list all maps in dialog modes that start with the beginning.
:mm[ap] beginning
list all maps in menu mode that start with the beginning.
:nm[ap] beginning
list all maps in normal mode that start with the beginning.
:qm[ap] beginning
list all maps in view mode that start with the beginning.
:vm[ap] beginning
list all maps in visual mode that start with the beginning.
:noremap
:no[remap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for normal and visual modes, but
don't expand user mappings in rhs.
:no[remap]! lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for command line mode, but don't
expand user mappings in rhs.
:cnoremap :dnoremap :mnoremap :nnoremap :qnoremap
:vnoremap
:cno[remap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for command line mode, but don't
expand user mappings in rhs.
:dn[oremap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for dialog modes, but don't ex-
pand user mappings in rhs.
:mn[oremap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for menu mode, but don't expand
user mappings in rhs.
:nn[oremap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for normal mode, but don't ex-
pand user mappings in rhs.
:qn[oremap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for view mode, but don't expand
user mappings in rhs.
:vn[oremap] lhs rhs
map the key sequence lhs to rhs for visual mode, but don't ex-
pand user mappings in rhs.
:unmap
:unm[ap] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from normal and visual modes.
:unm[ap]! lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from command line mode.
:cunmap :dunmap :munmap :nunmap :qunmap
:vunmap
:cu[nmap] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from command line mode.
:du[nmap] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from dialog modes.
:mu[nmap] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from menu mode.
:nun[map] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from normal mode.
:qun[map] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from view mode.
:vu[nmap] lhs
remove user mapping of lhs from visual mode.
Ranges
The ranges implemented include:
2,3 - from second to third file in the list (including it)
% - the entire directory.
. - the current position in the filelist.
$ - the end of the filelist.
't - the mark position t.
Examples:
:%delete
would delete all files in the directory.
:2,4delete
would delete the files in the list positions 2 through 4.
:.,$delete
would delete the files from the current position to the end of the
filelist.
:3delete4
would delete the files in the list positions 3, 4, 5, 6.
If a backward range is given :4,2delete - an query message is given and
user can chose what to do next.
The builtin commands that accept a range are :d[elete] and :y[ank].
Command macros
The command macros may be used in user commands.
%a User arguments. When user arguments contain macros, they are
expanded before preforming substitution of %a.
%c %"c The current file under the cursor.
%C %"C The current file under the cursor in the other directory.
%f %"f All of the selected files, but see "Selection" section below.
%F %"F All of the selected files in the other directory list, but see
"Selection" section below.
%b %"b Same as %f %F.
%d %"d Full path to current directory.
%D %"D Full path to other file list directory.
%rx %"rx
Full paths to files in the register {x}. In case of invalid
symbol in place of {x}, it's processed with the rest of the line
and default register is used.
%m Show command output in a menu.
%M Same as %m, but l (or Enter) key is handled like for :locate and
:find commands.
%u Process command output as list of paths and compose custom view
out of it.
%U Same as %u, but implies less list updates inside vifm, which is
absence of sorting at the moment.
%Iu Same as %u, but gives up terminal before running external com-
mand.
%IU Same as %U, but gives up terminal before running external com-
mand.
%S Show command output in the status bar.
%q Redirect command output to quick view, which is activated if
disabled.
%s Execute command in horizontally split window of active terminal
multiplexer (ignored if not running inside one).
%v Same as %s, but splits vertically.
%n Forbid use of terminal multiplexer to run the command.
%i Completely ignore command output. For background jobs this sup-
presses error dialogs, while still storing errors internally for
viewing via :jobs menu.
%Pl Pipe list of files to standard input of a command.
%Pz Same as %Pz, but separates paths by null ('\0') character.
%pc Marks the end of the main command and the beginning of the clear
command for graphical preview, which is invoked on closing pre-
view of a file.
%pd Marks a preview command as one that directly communicates with
the terminal. Beware that this is for things like sixel which
are self-contained sequences that depend only on current cursor
position, using this with anything else is likely to mangle ter-
minal state.
The following dimensions and coordinates are in characters:
%px x coordinate of top-left corner of preview area.
%py y coordinate of top-left corner of preview area.
%pw width of preview area.
%ph height of preview area.
Use %% if you need to put a percent sign in your command.
Note that %i, %Iu, %IU, %m, %M, %n, %q, %s, %S, %u, %U and %v macros
are mutually exclusive. Only the last one of them on the command will
take effect.
Note that %Pl and %Pz are mutually exclusive. Only the last one of
them on the command will take effect.
You can use file name modifiers after %c, %C, %f, %F, %b, %d and %D
macros. Supported modifiers are:
- :p - full path
- :u - UNC name of path (e.g. "\\server" in
"\\server\share"), Windows only. Expands to current computer name
for not UNC paths.
- :~ - relative to the home directory
- :. - relative to current directory
- :h - head of the file name
- :t - tail of the file name
- :r - root of the file name (without last extension)
- :e - extension of the file name (last one)
- :s?pat?sub? - substitute the first occurrence of pat with sub.
You can use any character for '?', but it must not occur in pat or
sub.
- :gs?pat?sub? - like :s, but substitutes all occurrences of pat with
sub.
See ':h filename-modifiers' in Vim's documentation for the detailed de-
scription.
Using %x means expand corresponding macro escaping all characters that
have special meaning. And %"x means using of double quotes and escape
only backslash and double quote characters, which is more useful on
Windows systems.
Position and quantity (if there is any) of %m, %M, %S or %s macros in
the command is unimportant. All their occurrences are removed from the
resulting command.
%c and %f macros are expanded to file names only, when %C and %F are
expanded to full paths. %f and %F follow this in %b too.
:com move mv %f %D
set the :move command to move all of the files selected in the
current directory to the other directory.
The %a macro is replaced with any arguments given to an alias command.
All arguments are considered optional.
:com lsl !!ls -l %a - set the lsl command to execute ls -l with
or without an argument.
:lsl<Enter>
will list the directory contents of the current directory.
:lsl filename<Enter>
will list only the given filename.
The macros can also be used in directly executing commands. ":!mv %f
%D" would move the current directory selected files to the other direc-
tory.
Appending & to the end of a command causes it to be executed in the
background. Typically you want to run two kinds of external commands
in the background:
- GUI applications that doesn't fork thus block vifm (:!sxiv %f &);
- console tools that do not work with terminal (:!mv %f %D &).
You don't want to run terminal commands, which require terminal input
or output something in background because they will mess up vifm's TUI.
Anyway, if you did run such a command, you can use Ctrl-L key to update
vifm's TUI.
Rewriting the example command with macros given above with background-
ing:
%m, %M, %s, %S, %u and %U macros cannot be combined with background
mark (" &") as it doesn't make much sense.
Command backgrounding
Copy and move operation can take a lot of time to proceed. That's why
vifm supports backgrounding of this two operations. To run :copy,
:move or :delete command in the background just add " &" at the end of
a command.
For each background operation a new thread is created. Job cancella-
tion can be requested in the :jobs menu via dd shortcut.
You can see if command is still running in the :jobs menu. Back-
grounded commands have progress instead of process id at the line be-
ginning.
Background operations cannot be undone.
Cancellation
Note that cancellation works somewhat different on Windows platform due
to different mechanism of break signal propagation. One also might
need to use Ctrl-Break shortcut instead of Ctrl-C.
There are two types of operations that can be cancelled:
- file system operations;
- mounting with FUSE (but not unmounting as it can cause loss of
data);
- calls of external applications.
Note that vifm never terminates applications, it sends SIGINT signal
and lets the application quit normally.
When one of set of operations is cancelled (e.g. copying of 5th file of
10 files), further operations are cancelled too. In this case undo
history will contain only actually performed operations.
Cancelled operations are indicated by "(cancelled)" suffix appended to
information message on statusbar.
File system operations
Currently the following commands can be cancelled: :alink, :chmod,
:chown, :clone, :copy, :delete, :mkdir, :move, :restore, :rlink,
:touch. File putting (on p/P key) can be cancelled as well. It's not
hard to see that these are mainly long-running operations.
Cancelling commands when they are repeated for undo/redo operations is
allowed for convenience, but is not recommended as further undo/redo
operations might get blocked by side-effects of partially cancelled
group of operations.
These commands can't be cancelled: :empty, :rename, :substitute, :tr.
Mounting with FUSE
It's not considered to be an error, so only notification on the status
bar is shown.
External application calls
Each of this operations can be cancelled: :apropos, :find, :grep, :lo-
cate.
Selection
If there is a selection, it's stashed before proceeding further unless
file under the cursor is part of that selection. This means that when
macros are expanded for :filetype or :filextype programs, `%f` and `%F`
become equivalent to `%c` and `%C` respectively if current file is not
selected. So you run selection by running one of selected files, oth-
erwise you're running a single file even if there are other selected
entries.
When running a selection it must not include broken symbolic links, has
to be consistent and set of file handlers must be compatible. Consis-
tency means that selection contains either only directories (including
links to them) or only files, but not their mix.
Compatibility is a more sophisticated check, but it's defined in a nat-
ural way so that you get what you'd expect. The following properties
of selection are taken into account while checking it for compatibility
and deciding how to handle it:
1. If there any files for which handler isn't defined, then all files
are opened using 'vicmd' or 'vixcmd'.
2. If all handlers match the following criteria:
- backgrounded
- include `%c` and/or `%C`
- include neither `%f` nor `%F`
then each file is executed independently of the rest.
3. If all handlers are equal, the common handler is executed. This
handler might ignore selection and process only file under the
cursor.
4. Otherwise, an error is reported, because handlers differ and they
don't support parallel execution.
Patterns
:highlight, :filetype, :filextype, :fileviewer commands and 'classify'
option support globs, regular expressions and mime types to match file
names or their paths.
There are six possible ways to write a single pattern:
1. [!]{comma-separated-name-globs}
2. [!]{{comma-separated-path-globs}}
3. [!]/name-regular-expression/[iI]
4. [!]//path-regular-expression//[iI]
5. [!]<comma-separated-mime-type-globs>
6. undecorated-pattern
First five forms can include leading exclamation mark that negates pat-
tern matching.
The last form is implicitly refers to one of others. :highlight does
not accept undecorated form, while :filetype, :filextype, :fileviewer,
:select, :unselect and 'classify' treat it as list of name globs.
Path patterns receive absolute path of the file that includes its name
component as well.
To combine several patterns (AND them), make sure you're using one of
the first five forms and write patterns one after another, like this:
<text/plain>{*.vifm}
Mind that if you make a mistake the whole string will be treated as the
sixth form.
:filetype, :filextype and :fileviewer commands accept comma-separated
list of patterns instead of a single pattern, thus effectively handling
OR operation on them:
<text/plain>{*.vifm},<application/pdf>{*.pdf}
Forms that accept comma-separated lists of patterns also process them
as lists of alternatives.
Patterns with regular expressions
Regular expression patterns are case insensitive by default, see de-
scription of commands, which might override default behaviour.
Flags of regular expressions mean the following:
- "i" makes filter case insensitive;
- "I" makes filter case sensitive. They can be repeated multiple
times, but the later one takes precedence (e.g. "iiiI" is equivalent
to "I" and "IiIi" is the same as "i").
There are no implicit `^` or `$`, so make sure to specify them explic-
itly if the pattern should match the whole name or path.
Patterns with globs
"Globs" section below provides short overview of globs and some impor-
tant points that one needs to know about them.
Patterns with mime-types
Mime type matching is essentially globs matching applied to mime type
of a file instead of its name/path. Note: mime types aren't detected
on Windows.
Examples
Associate `evince` to PDF-files only inside `/home/user/downloads/` di-
rectory (excluding its subdirectories):
:filextype //^/home/user/downloads/[^/]*.pdf$// evince %f
Globs
Globs are always case insensitive as it makes sense in general case.
`*`, `?`, `[` and `]` are treated as special symbols in the pattern.
E.g.
:filetype * less %c
matches all files. One can use character classes for escaping, so
:filetype [*] less %c
matches only one file name, the one which contains only asterisk sym-
bol.
`*` means any number of any characters (possibly an empty substring),
with one exception: asterisk at the pattern beginning doesn't match dot
in the first position. E.g.
:fileviewer *.zip,*.jar zip -sf %c
associates using of `zip` program to preview all files with `zip` or
`jar` extensions as listing of their content, but `.file.zip` won't be
matched.
`?` means any character at this position. E.g.
:fileviewer ?.out file %c
calls `file` tool for all files which have exactly one character before
their extension (e.g. a.out, b.out).
Square brackets designate character class, which means that whole char-
acter class matches against any of characters listed in it. For exam-
ple
:fileviewer *.[ch] highlight -O xterm256 -s dante --syntax c %c
makes vifm call `highlight` program to colorize source and header files
in C language for a 256-color terminal. Equal command would be
:fileviewer *.c,*.h highlight -O xterm256 -s dante --syntax c %c
Inside square brackets `^` or `!` can be used for symbol class negotia-
tion and the `-` symbol to set a range. `^` and `!` should appear
right after the opening square bracket. For example
:filetype *.[!d]/ inspect_dir
associates `inspect_dir` as additional handler for all directories that
have one character extension unless it's "d" letter. And
:filetype [0-9].jpg sxiv
associates `sxiv` picture viewer only for JPEG-files that contain sin-
gle digit in their name.
If you need to include literal comma, which is normally separates mul-
tiple globs, double it.
:set options
Local options
These are kind of options that are local to a specific view. So
you can set ascending sorting order for left pane and descending
order for right pane.
In addition to being local to views, each such option also has
two values:
- local to current directory (value associated with current
location);
- global to current directory (value associated with the
pane).
The idea is that current directory can be made a temporary ex-
ception to regular configuration of the view, until directory
change. Use :setlocal for that. :setglobal changes view value
not affecting settings until directory change. :set applies
changes immediately to all values.
'aproposprg'
type: string
default: "apropos %a"
Specifies format for an external command to be invoked by the
:apropos command. The format supports expanding of macros, spe-
cific for a particular *prg option, and %% sequence for insert-
ing percent sign literally. This option should include the %a
macro to specify placement of arguments passed to the :apropos
command. If the macro is not used, it will be implicitly added
after a space to the value of this option.
'autochpos'
type: boolean
default: true
When disabled vifm will set cursor to the first line in the view
after :cd and :pushd commands instead of saved cursor position.
Disabling this will also make vifm clear information about cur-
sor position in the view history on :cd and :pushd commands (and
on startup if 'autochpos' is disabled in the vifmrc). l key in
the ":history ." and ":trashes" menus are treated like :cd com-
mand. This option also affects marks so that navigating to a
mark doesn't restore cursor position.
When this option is enabled, more fine grained control over cur-
sor position is available via 'histcursor' option.
'columns' 'co'
type: integer
default: terminal width on startup
Terminal width in characters.
'caseoptions'
type: charset
default: ""
This option gives additional control over case sensitivity by
allowing overriding default behaviour to either always be case
sensitive or always be case insensitive. Possible values form
pairs of lower and upper case letters that configure specific
aspect of behaviour:
p - always ignore case of paths during completion.
P - always match case of paths during completion.
g - always ignore case of characters for f/F/;/,.
G - always match case of characters for f/F/;/,.
At most one item of each pair takes affect, if both or more are
present, only the last one matters. When none of pair's ele-
ments are present, the behaviour is default (depends on operat-
ing system for path completion and on values of 'ignorecase' and
'smartcase' options for file navigation).
'cdpath' 'cd'
type: string list
default: value of $CDPATH with commas instead of colons
Specifies locations to check on changing directory with relative
path that doesn't start with "./" or "../". When non-empty,
current directory is examined after directories listed in the
option.
This option doesn't affect completion of :cd command.
Example:
set cdpath=~
This way ":cd bin" will switch to "~/bin" even if directory
named "bin" exists in current directory, while ":cd ./bin" com-
mand will ignore value of 'cdpath'.
'chaselinks'
type: boolean
default: false
When enabled path of view is always resolved to real path (with
all symbolic links expanded).
'classify'
type: string list
default: ":dir:/"
Specifies file name prefixes and suffixes depending on file type
or name. The format is either of:
- [{prefix}]:{filetype}:[{suffix}]
- [{prefix}]::{pattern}::[{suffix}]
Possible {pattern} forms are described in "Patterns" section
above.
Priority rules:
- file name patterns have priority over type patterns
- file name patterns are matched in left-to-right order of
their appearance in this option
Either {prefix} or {suffix} or both can be omitted (which is the
default for all unspecified file types), this means empty {pre-
fix} and/or {suffix}. {prefix} and {suffix} should consist of
at most eight characters. Elements are separated by commas.
Neither prefixes nor suffixes are part of file names, so they
don't affect commands which operate on file names in any way.
Comma (',') character can be inserted by doubling it. List of
file type names can be found in the description of filetype()
function.
'confirm' 'cf'
type: set
default: delete,permdelete
Defines which operations require confirmation:
- delete - moving files to trash (on d or :delete);
- permdelete - permanent deletion of files (on D or :delete!
command or on undo/redo operation).
'cpoptions' 'cpo'
type: charset
default: "fst"
Contains a sequence of single-character flags. Each flag en-
ables behaviour of older versions of vifm. Flags:
- f - when included, running :filter command results in not in-
verted (matching files are filtered out) and :filter! in in-
verted (matching files are left) filter, when omitted, meaning
of the exclamation mark changes to the opposite;
- s - when included, yy, dd and DD normal mode commands act on
selection, otherwise they operate on current file only;
- t - when included, <tab> (thus <c-i>) behave as <space> and
switches active pane, otherwise <tab> and <c-i> go forward in
the view history. It's possible to make both <tab> and <c-i> to
work as expected by setting up the terminal to emit a custom se-
quence when <c-i> is pressed; see :histnext for details.
'cvoptions'
type: set
default:
Specifies whether entering/leaving custom views triggers events
that normally happen on entering/leaving directories:
- autocmds - trigger autocommands on entering/leaving custom
views;
- localopts - reset local options on entering/leaving custom
views;
- localfilter - reset local filter on entering/leaving custom
views.
'deleteprg'
type: string
default: ""
Specifies program to run on files that are permanently removed.
When empty, files are removed as usual, otherwise this command
is invoked on each file by appending its name. If the command
doesn't remove files, they will remain on the file system.
'dirsize'
type: enumeration
default: size
Controls how size of directories is displayed in file views.
The following values are possible:
- size - size of directory (i.e., size used to store list of
files)
- nitems - number of entries in the directory (excluding . and
..)
Size obtained via ga/gA overwrites this setting so seeing count
of files and occasionally size of directories is possible.
'dotdirs'
type: set
default: nonrootparent,treeleafsparent
Controls displaying of dot directories. The following values
are possible:
- rootparent - show "../" in root directory of file system
- nonrootparent - show "../" in non-root directories of file
system
- treeleafsparent - show "../" in empty directories of tree
view
Note that empty directories always contain "../" entry regard-
less of value of this option. "../" disappears at the moment at
least one file is created.
'dotfiles'
type: boolean
default: false
Whether dot files are shown in the view. Can be controlled with
z* bindings.
'fastrun'
type: boolean
default: false
With this option turned on you can run partially entered com-
mands with unambiguous beginning using :! (e.g. :!Te instead of
:!Terminal or :!Te<tab>).
'fillchars' 'fcs'
type: string list
default: ""
Sets characters used to fill borders.
item default used for
vborder:c ' ' left, middle and right vertical bor-
ders
If value is omitted, its default value is used. Example:
set fillchars=vborder:.
'findprg'
type: string
default: "find %s %a -print , -type d \( ! -readable -o ! -exe-
cutable \) -prune"
Specifies format for an external command to be invoked by the
:find command. The format supports expansion of macros specific
for this particular option and %% sequence for inserting percent
sign literally. The macros are:
macro value/meaning
%s literal arguments of :find or
list of paths to search in
%A empty or
literal arguments of :find
%a empty or
literal arguments of :find or
predicate followed by escaped arguments of :find
%p empty or
literal arguments of :find or
escaped arguments (parameters) of :find
%u redirect output to custom view instead of showing a
menu
%U redirect output to unsorted custom view instead of
showing a menu
Predicate in %a is "-name" on *nix and "-iname" on Windows.
If both %u and %U are specified, %U is chosen.
Some macros can be added implicitly:
- if %s isn't present, it's appended
- if neither of %a, %A and %p is present, %a is appended
- if neither of %s, %a, %A and %p is present, %s and %a are ap-
pended in this order
The macros slightly change their meaning depending on format of
:find's arguments:
- if the first argument points to an existing directory, %s is
assigned all arguments while %a, %A and %p are left empty
- otherwise:
- %s is assigned a dot (".") meaning current directory or
list of selected file names, if any
- %a, %A and %p are assigned literal arguments when first
argument starts with a dash ("-"), otherwise %a gets an escaped
version of the arguments with a predicate and %p contains es-
caped version of the arguments
Starting with Windows Server 2003 a `where` command is avail-
able. One can configure vifm to use it in the following way:
set findprg="where /R %s %A"
As the syntax of this command is rather limited, one can't use
:find command with selection of more than one item because the
command ignores all directory paths except for the last one.
When using find port on Windows, another option is to setup
'findprg' like this:
set findprg="find %s %a"
'followlinks'
type: boolean
default: true
Follow links on l or Enter. That is navigate to destination
file instead of treating the link as if it were target file.
Doesn't affects links to directories, which are always entered
(use gf key for directories).
'fusehome'
type: string
default: "($XDG_DATA_HOME/.local/share | $VIFM)/fuse/"
Directory to be used as a root dir for FUSE mounts. Value of
the option can contain environment variables (in form "$en-
vname"), which will be expanded (prepend it with a slash to pre-
vent expansion). The value should expand to an absolute path.
If you change this option, vifm won't remount anything. It af-
fects future mounts only. See "Automatic FUSE mounts" section
below for more information.
'gdefault' 'gd'
type: boolean
default: false
When on, 'g' flag is on for :substitute by default.
'grepprg'
type: string
default: "grep -n -H -I -r %i %a %s"
Specifies format for an external command to be invoked by the
:grep command. The format supports expanding of macros, spe-
cific for a particular *prg option, and %% sequence for insert-
ing percent sign literally. This option should include the %i
macro to specify placement of "-v" string when inversion of re-
sults is requested, %a or %A macro to specify placement of argu-
ments passed to the :grep command and the %s macro to specify
placement of list of files to search in. If some of the macros
are not used, they will be implicitly added after a space to the
value of the 'grepprg' option in the following order: %i, %a,
%s. Note that when neither %a nor %A are specified, it's %a
which is added implicitly.
Optional %u or %U macro could be used (if both specified %U is
chosen) to force redirection to custom or unsorted custom view
respectively.
See 'findprg' option for description of difference between %a
and %A.
Example of setup to use ack (http://beyondgrep.com/) instead of
grep:
set grepprg='ack -H -r %i %a %s'
or The Silver Searcher (https://github.com/ggreer/the_sil-
ver_searcher):
set grepprg='ag --line-numbers %i %a %s'
'histcursor'
type: set
default: startup,dirmark,direnter
Defines situations when cursor should be moved according to di-
rectory history:
- startup - on loading file lists during startup
- dirmark - after navigating to a mark that doesn't specify
file
- direnter - on opening directory from a file list
This option has no effect when 'autochpos' is disabled.
Note that the list is not exhaustive and there are other situa-
tions when cursor is positioned automatically.
'history' 'hi'
type: integer
default: 15
Maximum number of stored items in all histories.
'hlsearch' 'hls'
type: boolean
default: true
Automatically select files that are search matches.
'iec' type: boolean
default: false
Use KiB, MiB, ... suffixes instead of K, M, ... when printing
size in human-friendly format.
'ignorecase' 'ic'
type: boolean
default: false
Ignore case in search patterns (:substitute, / and ? commands),
local filter (but not the rest of filters) and other things de-
tailed in the description of 'caseoptions'.
'incsearch' 'is'
type: boolean
default: false
When this option is set, search and view update for local filter
is be performed starting from initial cursor position each time
search pattern is changed.
'iooptions'
type: set
default:
Controls details of file operations. The following values are
available:
- fastfilecloning - perform fast file cloning (copy-on-write),
when available
(available on Linux and btrfs file system).
'laststatus' 'ls'
type: boolean
default: true
Controls if status bar is visible.
'lines'
type: integer
default: terminal height on startup
Terminal height in lines.
'locateprg'
type: string
default: "locate %a"
Specifies format for an external command to be invoked by the
:locate command. The format supports expanding of macros, spe-
cific for a particular *prg option, and %% sequence for insert-
ing percent sign literally. This option should include the %a
macro to specify placement of arguments passed to the :locate
command. If the macro is not used, it will be implicitly added
after a space to the value of this option.
Optional %u or %U macro could be used (if both specified %U is
chosen) to force redirection to custom or unsorted custom view
respectively.
'mediaprg'
type: string
default: path to bundled script that supports udevil, udisks and
udisks2
(using udisks2 requires python with dbus module in-
stalled)
OS X: path points to a python script that uses diskutil
{only for *nix}
Specifies command to be used to manage media devices. Used by
:media command.
The command can be passed the following parameters:
- list -- list media
- mount {device} -- mount a device
- unmount {path} -- unmount given mount point
The output of `list` subcommand is parsed in search of lines
that start with one of the following prefixes:
- device= - specifies device path (e.g., "/dev/sde")
- label= - specifies optional device label (e.g., "Memory
card")
- info= - specifies arbitrary text to display next to
device (by
default "[label]" is used, if label is pro-
vided)
- mount-point= - specifies a mount point (can be absent or ap-
pear more than once)
All other lines are ignored. Each `device=` starts a new sec-
tion describing a device which should include two other possible
prefixes.
`list` subcommand is assumed to always succeed, while exit code
of `mount` and `unmount` is taken into account to determine
whether operation was performed successfully.
'lsoptions'
type: string list
default: ""
scope: local
Configures ls-like view.
item used for
transposed filling view grid by columns rather than by
lines
'lsview'
type: boolean
default: false
scope: local
When this option is set, directory view will be displayed in
multiple columns with file names similar to output of `ls -x`
command. See "ls-like view" section below for format descrip-
tion. This option has no effect if 'millerview' is on.
'milleroptions'
type: string list
default: "lsize:1,csize:1,rsize:1,rpreview:dirs"
scope: local
Configures miller view.
item default used for
lsize:num 0 left column
csize:num 1 center column (can't be disabled)
rsize:num 0 right column
rpreview:str dirs right column
*size specifies ratios of columns. Each ratio is in the range
from 0 to 100 and values are adjusted to fit the limits. Zero
disables a column, but central (main) column can't be disabled.
rpreview specifies what file-system objects should be previewed
in the right column and can take two values: dirs (only directo-
ries) or all. Both options don't include parent directory
("..").
Example of two-column mode which is useful in combination with
:view command:
set milleroptions=lsize:1,csize:2
'millerview'
type: boolean
default: false
scope: local
When this option is set, directory view will be displayed in
multiple cascading columns. Ignores 'lsview'.
'mintimeoutlen'
type: integer
default: 150
The fracture of 'timeoutlen' in milliseconds that is waited be-
tween subsequent input polls, which affects various asynchronous
operations (detecting changes made by external applications,
monitoring background jobs, redrawing UI). There are no strict
guarantees, however the higher this value is, the less is CPU
load in idle mode.
'number' 'nu'
type: boolean
default: false
scope: local
Print line number in front of each file name when 'lsview' op-
tion is turned off. Use 'numberwidth' to control width of line
number. Also see 'relativenumber'.
'numberwidth' 'nuw'
type: integer
default: 4
scope: local
Minimal number of characters for line number field.
'previewoptions'
type: string list
default: "graphicsdelay:50000"
Tweaks how previewing is done (in quick view, miller view's col-
umn and view mode).
item default meaning
graphicsdelay:num 0 delay before drawing graphics (mi-
croseconds)
hardgraphicsclear unset redraw screen to get rid of graph-
ics
toptreestats unset show file counts before the tree
graphicsdelay is needed if terminal requires some timeout before
it can draw graphics (otherwise it gets lost).
hardgraphicsclear seems to be necessary to get rid of sixel
graphics in some terminals, where it otherwise lingers. This
can cause flicker on the screen due to erasure followed by re-
drawing.
'previewprg'
type: string
default: ""
scope: local
External command to be used instead of preview programs config-
ured via :fileviewer command.
Example:
" always show git log in preview of files inside some repository
au DirEnter '~/git-repo/**/*' setl previewprg='git log --color -- %c 2>&1'
'quickview'
type: boolean
default: false
Whether quick view (:view) is currently active or not.
'relativenumber' 'rnu'
type: boolean
default: false
scope: local
Print relative line number in front of each file name when
'lsview' option is turned off. Use 'numberwidth' to control
width of line number. Various combinations of 'number' and
'relativenumber' lead to such results:
nonumber number
norelativenumber | first | 1 first
| second | 2 second
| third | 3 third
relativenumber | 1 first | 1 first
| 0 second |2 second
| 1 third | 1 third
'rulerformat' 'ruf'
type: string
default: "%l/%S "
Determines the content of the ruler. Its minimal width is 13
characters and it's right aligned. Following macros are sup-
ported:
%= - separation point between left and right aligned halves of
the line
%l - file number
%L - total number of files in view (including filtered out
ones)
%x - number of files excluded by filters
%0- - old name for %x macro
%P - percentage through file list (All, Top, xx% or Bot), al-
ways 3 in length
%S - number of displayed files
%= - separation point between left and right align items
%% - literal percent sign
%[ - designates beginning of an optional block
%] - designates end of an optional block
Percent sign can be followed by optional minimum field width.
Add '-' before minimum field width if you want field to be right
aligned.
Optional blocks are ignored unless at least one macro inside of
them is expanded to a non-empty value.
Example:
set rulerformat='%2l-%S%[ +%x%]'
'runexec'
type: boolean
default: false
Run executable file on Enter, l or Right Arrow key. Behaviour
of the last two depends on the value of the 'lsview' option.
'scrollbind' 'scb'
type: boolean
default: false
When this option is set, vifm will try to keep difference of
scrolling positions of two windows constant.
'scrolloff' 'so'
type: integer
default: 0
Minimal number of screen lines to keep above and below the cur-
sor. If you want cursor line to always be in the middle of the
view (except at the beginning or end of the file list), set this
option to some large value (e.g. 999).
'sessionoptions' 'ssop'
sessionoptions ssop
type: set
default: tui,state,tabs,savedirs,dhistory
An equivalent of 'vifminfo' for sessions, uses the same values.
When both options include the same value, data from session file
has higher priority (data from vifminfo isn't necessarily com-
pletely discarded, instead it's merged with the state of a ses-
sion the same way state of multiple instances is merged on
exit).
'shell' 'sh'
type: string
default: $SHELL or "/bin/sh" or "cmd" (on MS-Windows)
Full path to the shell to use to run external commands. On *nix
a shell argument can be supplied.
'shellcmdflag' 'shcf'
type: string
default: "-c" or "/C" (for cmd.exe on MS-Windows)
Command-line option used to pass a command to 'shell'. It's
used in contexts where command comes from the user.
Note that using this option to force interactive mode of the
shell is most likely a BAD IDEA. In general interactive host
and interactive child shell can't share the same terminal ses-
sion. You can't even run such a shell in background. Consider
writing a wrapper for your shell that preloads aliases and com-
mands without making the shell interactive and ending up using
it in a way it was not meant to be used.
Note that this option is ignored when 'shell' is set to Power-
Shell due to the internal use of `-encodedCommand`.
'shortmess' 'shm'
type: charset
default: "p"
Contains a sequence of single-character flags. Each flag en-
ables shortening of some message displayed by vifm in the TUI.
Flags:
- L - display only last directory in tab line instead of full
path.
- M - shorten titles in windows of terminal multiplexers cre-
ated by vifm down to file name instead of using full path.
- T - truncate status-bar messages in the middle if they are
too long to fit on the command line. "..." will appear in the
middle.
- p - use tilde shortening in view titles.
'showtabline' 'stal'
type: enumeration
default: multiple
Specifies when tab line should be displayed. Possible values:
- never - never display tab line
- multiple - show tab line only when there are at least two
tabs
- always - display tab line always
Alternatively 0, 1 and 2 Vim-like values are also accepted and
correspond to "never", "multiple" and "always" respectively.
'sizefmt'
type: string list
default: "units:iec"
Configures the way size is formatted in human-friendly way.
item value meaning
units: iec Use 1024 byte units (K or KiB,
etc.).
See 'iec' option.
si Use 1000 byte units (KB, etc.).
precision: i > 0 How many fraction digits to con-
sider.
{not set} Precision of 1 for integer part
< 10,
0 otherwise (provides old behav-
iour).
space {present} Insert space before unit sym-
bols.
This is the default.
nospace {present} Do not insert space before unit
symbols.
Numbers are rounded from zero. Trailing zeros are dropped.
Example:
set sizefmt=units:iec,precision:2,nospace
'slowfs'
type: string list
default: ""
only for *nix
A list of mounter fs name beginnings (first column in /etc/mtab
or /proc/mounts) or paths prefixes for fs/directories that work
too slow for you. This option can be used to stop vifm from
making some requests to particular kinds of file systems that
can slow down file browsing. Currently this means don't check
if directory has changed, skip check if target of symbolic links
exists, assume that link target located on slow fs to be a di-
rectory (allows entering directories and navigating to files via
gf). If you set the option to "*", it means all the systems are
considered slow (useful for cygwin, where all the checks might
render vifm very slow if there are network mounts).
Example for autofs root /mnt/autofs:
set slowfs+=/mnt/autofs
'smartcase' 'scs'
type: boolean
default: false
Overrides the ignorecase option if a pattern contains at least
one upper case character. Only used when 'ignorecase' option is
enabled.
'sort' type: string list
default: +name on *nix and +iname on Windows
scope: local
Sets list of sorting keys (first item is primary key, second is
secondary key, etc.):
[+-]ext - extension of files and directories
[+-]fileext - extension of files only
[+-]name - name (including extension)
[+-]iname - name (including extension, ignores case)
[+-]type - file type
(dir/reg/exe/link/char/block/sock/fifo)
[+-]dir - directory grouping (directory < file)
[+-]gid - group id (*nix only)
[+-]gname - group name (*nix only)
[+-]mode - file type derived from its mode (*nix only)
[+-]perms - permissions string (*nix only)
[+-]uid - owner id (*nix only)
[+-]uname - owner name (*nix only)
[+-]nlinks - number of hard links (*nix only)
[+-]inode - inode number (*nix only)
[+-]size - size
[+-]nitems - number of items in a directory (zero for files)
[+-]groups - groups extracted via regexps from 'sortgroups'
[+-]target - symbolic link target (empty for other file
types)
[+-]atime - time accessed (e.g., read, executed)
[+-]ctime - time changed (changes in metadata, like mode)
[+-]mtime - time modified (when file contents is changed)
Note: look for st_atime, st_ctime and st_mtime in "man 2 stat"
for more information on time keys.
'+' means ascending sort for this key, and '-' means descending
sort.
"dir" key is somewhat similar in this regard but it's added im-
plicitly: when "dir" is not specified, sorting behaves as if it
was the first key in the list. That's why if one wants sorting
algorithm to mix directories and files, "dir" should be appended
to sorting option, for example like this:
set sort+=dir
or
set sort=-size,dir
Value of the option is checked to include dir key and default
sorting key (name on *nix, iname on Windows). Here is what hap-
pens if one of them is missing:
- type key is added at the beginning;
- default key is added at the end;
all other keys are left untouched (at most they are moved).
This option also changes view columns according to primary sort-
ing key set, unless 'viewcolumns' option is not empty.
'sortnumbers'
type: boolean
default: false
scope: local
Natural sort of (version) numbers within text.
'sortgroups'
type: string
default: ""
scope: local
Sets comma-separated list of regular expressions for group type
of sorting. Double the comma to insert it literally.
The regular expressions are used to extract substrings of file
names to serve as keys for sorting. It is essentially a way to
ignore uninteresting parts of file names during sorting by name.
Each expression should contain at least one group or its value
will be considered to be always empty. Also, only the first
match of regular expression is processed.
The first group divides list of files into sub-groups, each of
which is then sorted by substrings extracted using second regu-
lar expression and so on recursively.
Example:
set sortgroups=-(todo|done).*
this would group files with "-done" in their names and files
with "-todo" separately. On ascending sorting, group containing
"-done" would appear before the other one.
'sortorder'
type: enumeration
default: ascending
Sets sort order for primary key: ascending, descending.
'statusline' 'stl'
type: string
default: ""
Determines the content of the status line (the line right above
command-line). Empty string means use same format like in pre-
vious versions. Following macros are supported:
- %N - line break (increases height of the status line accord-
ingly), ignores %[ %] blocks
- %t - file name (considering value of the 'classify' option)
- %T - symbolic link target (empty for other filetypes)
- %f - file name relative to current directory (considers 'clas-
sify')
- %A - file attributes (permissions on *nix or properties on
Windows)
- %u - user name or uid (if it cannot be resolved)
- %g - group name or gid (if it cannot be resolved)
- %s - file size in human readable format
- %E - size of selected files in human readable format, same as
%s when no files are selected, except that it will never show
size of ../ in visual mode, since it cannot be selected
- %d - file modification date (uses 'timefmt' option)
- %D - path of the other pane for single-pane layout
- %a - amount of free space available on current FS
- %c - size of current FS
- %z - short tips/tricks/hints that chosen randomly after one
minute period
- %{<expr>} - evaluate arbitrary vifm expression '<expr>', e.g.
'&sort'
- %* - resets or applies one of User1..User9 highlight groups;
reset happens when width field is 0 or not specified, one of
groups gets picked when width field is in the range from 1 to
9
- all 'rulerformat' macros
Percent sign can be followed by optional minimum field width.
Add '-' before minimum field width if you want field to be right
aligned.
On Windows file properties include the following flags (upper
case means flag is on):
A - archive
H - hidden
I - content isn't indexed
R - readonly
S - system
C - compressed
D - directory
E - encrypted
P - reparse point (e.g. symbolic link)
Z - sparse file
Example without colors:
set statusline=" %t%= %A %10u:%-7g %15s %20d %{&sort} "
Example with colors:
highlight User1 ctermbg=yellow
highlight User2 ctermbg=blue ctermfg=white cterm=bold
set statusline="%1* %-26t %2* %= %1* %A %2* %7u:%-7g %1* %-5s %2* %d "
'suggestoptions'
type: string list
default:
Controls when, for what and how suggestions are displayed. The
following values are available:
- normal - in normal mode;
- visual - in visual mode;
- view - in view mode;
- otherpane - use other pane to display suggestions, when
available;
- delay[:num] - display suggestions after a small delay (to
do not annoy if you just want to type a fast shortcut consisting
of multiple keys), num specifies the delay in ms (500 by de-
fault), 'timeoutlen' at most;
- keys - include shortcuts (commands and selectors);
- foldsubkeys - fold multiple keys with common prefix;
- marks - include marks;
- registers[:num] - include registers, at most num files (5 by
default).
'syncregs'
type: string
default:
Specifies identifier of group of instances that share registers
between each other. When several instances of vifm have this
option set to identical value, they automatically synchronize
contents of their registers on operations which use them.
'syscalls'
type: boolean
default: false
When disabled, vifm will rely on external applications to per-
form file-system operations, otherwise system calls are used in-
stead (much faster and supports progress tracking). The option
should eventually be removed. Mostly *nix-like systems are af-
fected.
'tablabel'
type: string
default: ""
When non-empty, determines format of the main part of a single
tab's label.
When empty, tab label is set to either tab name for named tabs
or to view title (usually current path) for unnamed tabs.
The following macros can appear in the format (see below for
what a flag is):
- %C - flag of a current tab
- %N - number of the tab
- %T - flag of a tree mode
- %c - description of a custom view
- %n - name of the tab
- %p - path of the view (handles filename modifiers)
- %t - title of the view (affected by 'shortmess' flags)
- %% - literal percent sign
- %[ - designates beginning of an optional block
- %] - designates end of an optional block
- %*, %0* - resets highlighting
- %1-%9 - applies one of User1..User9 highlight groups
In global tabs the view in bullets above refers to currently ac-
tive view of that tab.
Flag macros are a special kind of macros that always expand to
an empty value and are ment to be used inside optional blocks to
control their visibility.
Optional blocks are ignored unless at least one macro inside of
them is expanded to a non-empty value or is a set flag macro.
" %[(%n)%] -- optional name of the tab
" %[ -- optional description of the view
" %[%T{tree}%] -- mark of tree mode
" %[{%c}%] -- description of custom view
" @ -- just an extra separator before the path
' %]
" %p:t -- tail part of view's location
set tablabel=%[(%n)%]%[%[%T{tree}%]%[{%c}%]@%]%p:t
'tabprefix'
type: string
default: "[%N:"
Determines prefix of a tab's label. Formatting is done as for
'tablabel' option.
'tabscope'
type: enumeration
default: global
Picks style of tabs, which defines what a single tab contains.
Possible values:
- global - tab describes complete UI of two views and how they
are arranged
- pane - tab is located "inside" a pane and manages it and
quick view
'tabstop' 'ts'
type: integer
default: value from curses library
Number of spaces that a Tab in the file counts for.
'tabsuffix'
type: string
default: "]"
Determines suffix of a tab's label. Formatting is done as for
'tablabel' option.
'timefmt'
type: string
default: "%m/%d %H:%M"
Format of time in file list. See "man 1 date" or "man 3 strf-
time" for details.
'timeoutlen' 'tm'
type: integer
default: 1000
The time in milliseconds that is waited for a mapped key in case
of already typed key sequence is ambiguous.
'title'
type: boolean
default: true when title can be restored, false otherwise
When enabled, title of the terminal or terminal multiplexer's
window is updated according to current location. Because not
all terminals support setting title, this works only if `$TERM`
value matches one of the following conditions:
- equals "xterm" or starts with "xterm-"
- equals "rxvt" or starts with "rxvt-"
- equals "screen" or starts with "screen-"
- equals "aterm"
- equals "Eterm"
'trash'
type: boolean
default: true
Use trash directory. See "Trash directory" section below.
'trashdir'
type: string
default: on *nix:
"%r/.vifm-Trash-%u,$VIFM/Trash,%r/.vifm-Trash"
or if $VIFM/Trash doesn't exist
"%r/.vifm-Trash-%u,$XDG_DATA_HOME/vifm/Trash,%r/.vifm-Trash"
on Windows:
"%r/.vifm-Trash,$XDG_DATA_HOME/vifm/Trash"
List of trash directory path specifications, separated with com-
mas. Each list item either defines an absolute path to trash
directory or a path relative to a mount point root when list el-
ement starts with "%r/". Value of the option can contain envi-
ronment variables (of form "$envname"), which will be expanded
(prepend $ with a slash to prevent expansion). Environment
variables are expanded when the option is set.
On *nix, if element ends with "%u", the mark is replaced with
real user ID and permissions are set so that only that only
owner is able to use it.
Note that even this setup is not completely secure when combined
with "%r/" and it's overall safer to keep files in home direc-
tory, but that implies cost of copying files between partitions.
When new file gets cut (deleted) vifm traverses each element of
the option in the order of their appearance and uses first trash
directory that it was able to create or that is already
writable.
Default value tries to use trash directory per mount point and
falls back to ~/.vifm/Trash on failure.
Will attempt to create the directory if it does not exist. See
"Trash directory" section below.
'tuioptions' 'to'
type: charset
default: "psv"
Each flag configures some aspect of TUI appearance. The flags
are:
p - when included:
* file list inside a pane gets additional single character
padding on left and right sides;
* quick view and view mode get single character padding.
s - when included, left and right borders (side borders, hence
"s" character) are visible.
u - use Unicode characters in the TUI (Unicode ellipsis instead
of "...").
v - vary width of middle border to equalize view sizes.
Each pane title contains the path of the listed directory. If
too large, the path is truncated on the left for the active pane
and on the right for the other pane. This can be modified with:
l - truncation is always on the left.
r - truncation is always on the right.
'undolevels' 'ul'
type: integer
default: 100
Maximum number of changes that can be undone. Note that here
single file operation is used as a unit, not operation, i.e.
deletion of 101 files will exceed default limit.
'vicmd'
type: string
default: "vim"
Command used to edit files in various contexts. Ampersand sign
at the end (regardless whether it's preceded by space or not)
means backgrounding of command.
Background flag is ignored in certain context where vifm waits
for the editor to finish. Such contexts include any command
that spawns editor to change list of file names or a command,
with :rename being one example. `-f` is also appended to pre-
vent forking in such cases, so the command needs to handle the
flag.
Additionally `+{num}` and `+'call cursor()'` arguments are used
to position cursor when location is known.
'viewcolumns'
type: string
default: ""
scope: local
Format string containing list of columns in the view. When this
option is empty, view columns to show are chosen automatically
using sorting keys (see 'sort') as a base. Value of this option
is ignored if 'lsview' is set. See "Column view" section below
for format description.
An example of setting the options for both panes (note :windo
command):
windo set viewcolumns=-{name}..,6{size},11{perms}
'vixcmd'
type: string
default: value of 'vicmd'
Same as 'vicmd', but takes precedence over it when running in-
side a graphical environment.
'vifminfo'
type: set
default: bookmarks,bmarks
Controls what will be saved in the $VIFM/vifminfo file.
bmarks - named bookmarks (see :bmark command)
bookmarks - marks, except special ones like '< and '>
tui - state of the user interface (sorting, number of
windows, quick
view state, active view)
dhistory - directory history
state - file name and dot filters and terminal multiplex-
ers integration
state
cs - primary color scheme
savedirs - save last visited directory
chistory - command line history
shistory - search history (/ and ? commands)
phistory - prompt history
fhistory - history of local filter (see description of the
"=" normal mode
command)
dirstack - directory stack overwrites previous stack, unless
stack of
current instance is empty
registers - registers content
tabs - global or pane tabs
options - all options that can be set with the :set command
(obsolete)
filetypes - associated programs and viewers (obsolete)
commands - user defined commands (see :command description)
(obsolete)
'vimhelp'
type: boolean
default: false
Use vim help format.
'wildmenu' 'wmnu'
type: boolean
default: false
Controls whether possible matches of completion will be shown
above the command line.
'wildstyle'
type: enumeration
default: bar
Picks presentation style of wild menu. Possible values:
- bar - one-line with left-to-right cursor
- popup - multi-line with top-to-bottom cursor
'wordchars'
type: string list
default: "1-8,14-31,33-255" (that is all non-whitespace charac-
ters)
Specifies which characters in command-line mode should be con-
sidered as part of a word. Value of the option is comma-sepa-
rated list of ranges. If both endpoints of a range match, sin-
gle endpoint is enough (e.g. "a" = "a-a"). Both endpoints are
inclusive. There are two accepted forms: character representing
itself or number encoding character according to ASCII table.
In case of ambiguous characters (dash, comma, digit) use numeric
form. Accepted characters are in the range from 0 to 255. Any
Unicode character with code greater than 255 is considered to be
part of a word.
The option affects Alt-D, Alt-B and Alt-F, but not Ctrl-W. This
is intentionally to allow two use cases:
- Moving by WORDS and deletion by words.
- Moving by words and deletion by WORDS.
To get the latter use the following mapping:
cnoremap <c-w> <a-b><a-d>
Also used for abbreviations.
'wrap' type: boolean
default: true
Controls whether to wrap text in quick view.
'wrapscan' 'ws'
type: boolean
default: true
Searches wrap around end of the list.
Mappings
Map arguments
LHS of mappings can be preceded by arguments which take the form of
special sequences:
<silent>
Postpone UI updates until RHS is completely processed.
<wait> In case of builtin mapping causing conflict for a user-defined
mapping (e.g., `t` builtin to a partially typed `ta` user-de-
fined mapping), ignore the builtin mapping and wait for input
indefinitely as opposed to default behaviour of triggering the
builtin mapping after a delay defined by 'timeoutlen'. Example:
nnoremap <wait> tw :set wrap!<cr>
nnoremap <wait> tn :set number!<cr>
nnoremap <wait> tr :set relativenumber!<cr>
Special sequences
Since it's not easy to enter special characters there are several spe-
cial sequences that can be used in place of them. They are:
<cr> Enter key.
<esc> Escape key.
<space>
Space key.
<lt> Less-than character (<).
<nop> provides a way to disable a mapping (by mapping it to <nop>).
<bs> Backspace key (see key conflict description below).
<tab> <s-tab>
Tabulation and Shift+Tabulation keys.
<home> <end>
Home/End.
<left> <right> <up> <down>
Arrow keys.
<pageup> <pagedown>
PageUp/PageDown.
<del> <delete>
Delete key. <del> and <delete> mean different codes, but
<delete> is more common.
<insert>
Insert key.
<c-a>,<c-b>,...,<c-z>,<c-[>,<c->,<c-]>,<c-^>,<c-_>
Control + some key (see key conflict description below).
<c-@> only for *nix
Control + Space.
<a-a>,<a-b>,...,<a-z>
<m-a>,<m-b>,...,<m-z> Alt + some key.
<a-c-a>,<a-c-b>,...,<a-c-z>
<m-c-a>,<m-c-b>,...,<m-c-z> only for *nix
Alt + Ctrl + some key.
<f0> - <f63>
Functional keys.
<c-f1> - <c-f12>
only for MS-Windows
functional keys with Control key pressed.
<a-f1> - <a-f12>
only for MS-Windows
functional keys with Alt key pressed.
<s-f1> - <s-f12>
only for MS-Windows
functional keys with Shift key pressed.
Note that due to the way terminals process their input, several key-
board keys might be mapped to single key code, for example:
- <cr> and <c-m>;
- <tab> and <c-i>;
- <c-h> and <bs>;
- etc.
Most of the time they are defined consistently and don't cause sur-
prises, but <c-h> and <bs> are treated differently in different envi-
ronments (although they match each other all the time), that's why they
correspond to different keys in vifm. As a consequence, if you map <c-
h> or <bs> be sure to repeat the mapping with the other one so that it
works in all environments. Alternatively, provide your mapping in one
form and add one of the following:
" if mappings with <c-h> in the LHS work
map <c-h> <bs>
" if mappings with <bs> in the LHS work
map <bs> <c-h>
Whitespace
vifm removes whitespace characters at the beginning and end of com-
mands. That's why you may want to use <space> at the end of rhs in
mappings. For example:
cmap <f1> man<space>
will put "man " in line when you hit the <f1> key in the command line
mode.
Expression syntax
Supported expressions is a subset of what VimL provides.
Expression syntax summary, from least to most significant:
expr1 expr2
expr2 || expr2 .. logical OR
expr2 expr3
expr3 && expr3 .. logical AND
expr3 expr4
expr4 == expr4 equal
expr4 != expr4 not equal
expr4 > expr4 greater than
expr4 >= expr4 greater than or equal
expr4 < expr4 smaller than
expr4 <= expr4 smaller than or equal
expr4 expr5
expr5 + expr5 .. number addition
expr5 - expr5 .. number subtraction
expr5 expr6
expr6 . expr6 .. string concatenation
expr6 expr7
- expr6 unary minus
+ expr6 unary plus
! expr6 logical NOT
expr7 number number constant
"string" string constant, \ is special
'string' string constant, ' is doubled
&option option value
$VAR environment variable
v:var builtin variable
function(expr1, ...) function call
(expr1) nested expression
".." indicates that the operations in this level can be concatenated.
expr1
-----
expr2 || expr2
Arguments are converted to numbers before evaluation.
Result is non-zero if at least one of arguments is non-zero.
It's right associative and with short-circuiting, so sub-expressions
are evaluated from left to right until result of whole expression is
determined (i.e., until first non-zero) or end of the expression.
expr2
-----
expr3 && expr3
Arguments are converted to numbers before evaluation.
Result is non-zero only if both arguments are non-zero.
It's right associative and with short-circuiting, so sub-expressions
are evaluated from left to right until result of whole expression is
determined (i.e., until first zero) or end of the expression.
expr3
-----
expr4 {cmp} expr4
Compare two expr4 expressions, resulting in a 0 if it evaluates to
false or 1 if it evaluates to true.
equal ==
not equal !=
greater than >
greater than or equal >=
smaller than <
smaller than or equal <=
Examples:
'a' == 'a' == 1
'a' > 'b' == 1
'a' == 'b' == 0
'2' > 'b' == 0
2 > 'b' == 1
2 > '1b' == 1
2 > '9b' == 0
-1 == -'1' == 1
0 == '--1' == 1
expr4
-----
expr5 + expr5 .. number addition expr5 - expr5 .. number sub-
traction
Examples:
1 + 3 - 3 == 1
1 + '2' == 3
expr5
-----
expr6 . expr6 .. string concatenation
Examples:
'a' . 'b' == 'ab'
'aaa' . '' . 'c' == 'aaac'
expr6
-----
- expr6 unary minus
+ expr6 unary plus
! expr6 logical NOT
For '-' the sign of the number is changed.
For '+' the number is unchanged.
For '!' non-zero becomes zero, zero becomes one.
A String will be converted to a Number first.
These operations can be repeated and mixed. Examples:
--9 == 9
---9 == -9
-+9 == 9
!-9 == 0
!'' == 1
!'x' == 0
!!9 == 1
expr7
-----
number number constant
-----
Decimal number. Examples:
0 == 0
0000 == 0
01 == 1
123 == 123
10000 == 10000
string
------
"string" string constant
Note that double quotes are used.
A string constant accepts these special characters:
\b backspace <bs>
\e escape <esc>
\n newline
\r return <cr>
\t tab <tab>
\\ backslash
\" double quote
Examples:
"\"Hello,\tWorld!\""
"Hi,\nthere!"
literal-string
--------------
'string' string constant
Note that single quotes are used.
This string is taken as it is. No backslashes are removed or have a
special meaning. The only exception is that two quotes stand for one
quote.
Examples:
'All\slashes\are\saved.'
'This string contains doubled single quotes ''here'''
option
------
&option option value (local one is preferred, if exists)
&g:option global option value &l:option local
option value
Examples:
echo 'Terminal size: '.&columns.'x'.&lines
if &columns > 100
Any valid option name can be used here (note that "all" in ":set all"
is a pseudo option). See ":set options" section above.
environment variable
--------------------
$VAR environment variable
The String value of any environment variable. When it is not defined,
the result is an empty string.
Examples:
'This is my $PATH env: ' . $PATH
'vifmrc at ' . $MYVIFMRC . ' is used.'
builtin variable
--------------------
v:var builtin variable
Information exposed by vifm for use in scripting.
v:count
count passed to : command, 0 by default. Can be used in mappings to
passthe count to a different command.
v:count1
same as v:count, but 1 by default.
v:jobcount
number of active jobs (as can be seen in the :jobs menu).
v:session
name of the current session or empty string.
v:servername
See below.
function call
-------------
function(expr1, ...) function call
See "Functions" section below.
Examples:
"'" . filetype('.') . "'"
filetype('.') == 'reg'
expression nesting
------------------
(expr1) nested expression
Groups any other expression of arbitrary complexity enforcing order in
which operators are applied.
Functions
USAGE RESULT DESCRIPTION
chooseopt({opt}) String Queries choose parameters passed on
startup.
executable({expr}) Integer Checks whether {expr} command avail-
able.
expand({expr}) String Expands special keywords in {expr}.
extcached({cache}, {path}, {extcmd})
String Caches output of {extcmd} per {cache}
and
{path} combination.
filetype({fnum} [, {resolve}])
String Returns file type from position.
fnameescape({expr}) String Escapes {expr} for use in a :command.
getpanetype() String Returns type of current pane.
has({property}) Integer Checks whether instance has {prop-
erty}.
layoutis({type}) Integer Checks whether layout is of type
{type}.
paneisat({loc}) Integer Checks whether current pane is at
{loc}.
system({command}) String Executes shell command and returns
its output.
tabpagenr([{arg}]) Integer Returns number of current or last
tab.
term({command}) String Like system(), but for interactive
commands.
chooseopt({opt})
Retrieves values of options related to file choosing. {opt} can be one
of:
files returns argument of --choose-files or empty string
dir returns argument of --choose-dir or empty string
cmd returns argument of --on-choose or empty string
delimiter returns argument of --delimiter or the default one (\n)
executable({expr})
If {expr} is absolute or relative path, checks whether path destination
exists and refers to an executable, otherwise checks whether command
named {expr} is present in directories listed in $PATH. Checks for
various executable extensions on Windows. Returns boolean value de-
scribing result of the check.
Example:
" use custom default viewer script if it's available and installed
" in predefined system directory, otherwise try to find it elsewhere
if executable('/usr/local/bin/defviewer')
fileview * /usr/local/bin/defviewer %c
else
if executable('defviewer')
fileview * defviewer %c
endif
endif
expand({expr})
Expands environment variables and macros in {expr} just like it's done
for command-line commands. Returns a string. See "Command macros"
section above.
Examples:
" percent sign
:echo expand('%%')
" the last part of directory name of the other pane
:echo expand('%D:t')
" $PATH environment variable (same as `:echo $PATH`)
:echo expand('$PATH')
extcached({cache}, {path}, {extcmd})
Caches value of {extcmd} external command automatically updating it as
necessary based on monitoring change date of a {path}. The cache is
invalidated when file or its meta-data is updated. A single path can
have multiple caches associated with it.
{path} value is normalized, but symbolic links in it aren't resolved.
Example:
" display number and size of blocks actually used by a file or directory
set statusline+=" Uses: %{ extcached('uses',
expand('%c'),
expand('stat --format=%%bx%%B %c')) }"
filetype({fnum} [, {resolve}])
The result is a string, which represents file type and is one of the
list:
exe executables
reg regular files
link symbolic links
broken broken symbolic links (appears only when resolving)
dir directories
char character devices
block block devices
fifo pipes
sock *nix domain sockets
? unknown file type (should not normally happen) or
non-file (pseudo-entries in compare view)
The result can also be an empty string in case of invalid argument.
Parameter {fnum} can have following values:
- '.' to get type of file under the cursor in the active pane
- numerical value base 1 to get type of file on specified line num-
ber
Optional parameter {resolve} is treated as a boolean and specifies
whether symbolic links should be resolved.
fnameescape({expr})
Escapes parameter to make it suitable for use as an argument of a :com-
mand. List of escaped characters includes %, which is doubled.
Usage example:
" navigate to most recently modified file in current directory
execute 'goto' fnameescape(system('ls -t | head -1'))
getpanetype()
Retrieves string describing type of current pane. Possible return val-
ues:
regular regular file listing of some directory
custom custom file list (%u)
very-custom very custom file list (%U)
tree tree view
has({property})
Allows examining internal parameters from scripts to e.g. figure out
environment in which application is running. Returns 1 if property is
true/present, otherwise 0 is returned. Currently the following proper-
ties are supported (anything else will yield 0):
unix runs in *nix-like environment (including Cygwin)
win runs on Windows
Usage example:
" skip user/group on Windows
if !has('win')
let $RIGHTS = '%10u:%-7g '
endif
execute 'set' 'statusline=" %t%= %A '.$RIGHTS.'%15E %20d "'
layoutis({type})
Checks whether current interface layout is {type} or not, where {type}
can be:
only single-pane mode
split double-pane mode (either vertical or horizontal split)
vsplit vertical split (left and right panes)
hsplit horizontal split (top and bottom panes)
Usage example:
" automatically split vertically before enabling preview
:nnoremap w :if layoutis('only') | vsplit | endif | view!<cr>
paneisat({loc})
Checks whether position of active pane in current layout matches one of
the following locations:
top pane reaches top border
bottom pane reaches bottom border
left pane reaches left border
right pane reaches right border
system({command})
Runs the command in shell and returns its output (joined standard out-
put and standard error streams). All trailing newline characters are
stripped to allow easy appending to command output. Ctrl-C should in-
terrupt the command.
Use this function to consume output of external commands that don't re-
quire user interaction and term() for interactive commands that make
use of terminal and are capable of handling stream redirection.
Usage example:
" command to enter .git/ directory of git-repository (when ran inside one)
command! cdgit :execute 'cd' fnameescape(system('git rev-parse --git-dir'))
tabpagenr([{arg}])
When called without arguments returns number of current tab page base
one.
When called with "$" as an argument returns number of the last tab page
base one, which is the same as number of tabs.
term({command})
Same as system() function, but user interface is shutdown during the
execution of the command, which makes sure that external interactive
applications won't affect the way terminal is used by vifm.
Usage example:
" command to change directory by picking it via fzf
command! fzfcd :execute 'cd'
fnameescape(term('find -type d | fzf 2> /dev/tty'))
Menus and dialogs
When navigating to some path from a menu there is a difference in end
location depending on whether path has trailing slash or not. Files
normally don't have trailing slashes so "file/" won't work and one can
only navigate to a file anyway. On the other hand with directories
there are two options: navigate to a directory or inside of it. To al-
low both use cases, the first one is used on paths like "dir" and the
second one for "dir/".
Commands
:range navigate to a menu line.
:exi[t][!] :q[uit][!] :x[it][!]
leave menu mode.
:noh[lsearch]
reset search match highlighting.
:w[rite] {dest}
write all menu lines into file specified by {dest}.
General
j, Ctrl-N - move down.
k, Ctrl-P - move up.
Enter, l - select and exit the menu.
Ctrl-L - redraw the menu.
Escape, Ctrl-C, ZZ, ZQ, q - quit.
In all menus
The following set of keys has the same meaning as in normal mode.
Ctrl-B, Ctrl-F
Ctrl-D, Ctrl-U
Ctrl-E, Ctrl-Y
/, ?
n, N
[count]G, [count]gg
H, M, L
zb, zt, zz
zh - scroll menu items [count] characters to the right.
zl - scroll menu items [count] characters to the left.
zH - scroll menu items half of screen width characters to the right.
zL - scroll menu items half of screen width characters to the left.
: - enter command line mode for menus (currently only :exi[t], :q[uit],
:x[it] and :{range} are supported).
b - interpret content of the menu as list of paths and use it to create
custom view in place of previously active pane. See "Custom views"
section below.
B - same as above, but creates unsorted view.
v - load menu content into quickfix list of the editor (Vim compatible
by assumption) or if list doesn't have separators after file names
(colons) open each line as a file name.
Below is description of additional commands and reaction on selection
in some menus and dialogs.
Apropos menu
Selecting menu item runs man on a given topic. Menu won't be closed
automatically to allow view several pages one by one.
Command-line mode abbreviations menu
Type dd on an abbreviation to remove it.
c leaves menu preserving file selection and inserts right-hand side of
selected command into command-line.
Color scheme menu
Selecting name of a color scheme applies it the same way as if ":col-
orscheme <name>" was executed on the command-line.
Commands menu
Selecting command executes it with empty arguments (%a).
dd on a command to remove.
Marks menu
Selecting mark navigates to it.
dd on a mark to remove it.
Bookmarks menu
Selecting a bookmark navigates to it.
Type dd on a bookmark to remove it.
gf and e also work to make it more convenient to bookmark files.
Trash (:lstrash) menu
r on a file name to restore it from trash.
dd deletes file under the cursor.
Trashes (:trashes) menu
dd empties selected trash in background.
Directory history and Trashes menus
Selecting directory name will change directory of the current view as
if :cd command was used.
Directory stack menu
Selecting directory name will rotate stack to put selected directory
pair at the top of the stack.
File (:file) menu
Commands from vifmrc or typed in command-line are displayed above empty
line. All commands below empty line are from .desktop files.
c leaves menu preserving file selection and inserts command after :! in
command-line mode.
Grep, find, locate, bookmarks and user menu with navigation (%M macro)
gf - navigate previously active view to currently selected item.
Leaves menu mode except for grep menu. Pressing Enter key has the same
effect.
e - open selected path in the editor, stays in menu mode.
c - leave menu preserving file selection and insert file name after :!
in command-line mode.
User menu without navigation (%m macro)
c leaves menu preserving file selection and inserts whole line after :!
in command-line mode.
Grep menu
Selecting file (via Enter or l key) opens it in editor set by 'vicmd'
at given line number. Menu won't be closed automatically to allow
viewing more than one result.
See above for "gf" and "e" keys description.
Command-line history menu
Selecting an item executes it as command-line command, search query or
local filter.
c leaves menu preserving file selection and inserts line into command-
line of appropriate kind.
Volumes menu
Selecting a drive navigates previously active pane to the root of that
drive.
Fileinfo dialog
Enter, q - close dialog
Sort dialog
h, Space - switch ascending/descending.
q - close dialog
One shortcut per sorting key (see the dialog).
Attributes (permissions or properties) dialog
h, Space - check/uncheck.
q - close dialog
r - (*nix only) (un)set all read bits
w - (*nix only) (un)set all write bits
x - (*nix only) (un)set all execute bits
s - (*nix only) (un)set all special (SetUID, SetGID, Sticky) bits
e - (*nix only) (un)set recursion (for directories only)
Item states:
- * - checked flag.
- X - means that it has different value for files in selection.
- d (*nix only) - (only for execute flags) means u-x+X, g-x+X or o-x+X
argument for the chmod program. If you're not on OS X and want to
remove execute permission bit from all files, but preserve it for di-
rectories, set all execute flags to 'd' and check 'Set Recursively'
flag.
Jobs menu
dd requests cancellation of job under cursor. The job won't be removed
from the list, but marked as being cancelled (if cancellation was suc-
cessfully requested). A message will pop up if the job has already
stopped. Note that on Windows cancelling external programs like this
might not work, because their parent shell doesn't have any windows.
e key displays errors of selected job if any were collected. They are
displayed in a new menu, but you can get back to jobs menu by pressing
h.
Undolist menu
r - reset undo position to group under the cursor.
Media menu
Selecting a device either mounts (if it wasn't mounted yet) or navi-
gates to its first mount point.
Selecting a mount point navigates to it.
Selecting "not mounted" line causes mounting.
Selecting any other line does nothing.
r - reload the list.
m - mount/unmount device (cursor should be positioned on lines under
device information).
[ - put cursor on the previous device.
] - put cursor on the next device.
Plugins menu
e - display log messages of selected plugin if any were collected.
They are displayed in a new menu, but you can get back to plugins menu
by pressing h.
gf - navigate previously active view to the location of selected
plugin. Leaves menu mode.
Custom views
Definition
Normally file views contain list of files from a single directory, but
sometimes it's useful to populate them with list of files that do not
belong to the same directory, which is what custom views are for.
Presentation
Custom views are still related to directory they were in before custom
list was loaded. Path to that directory (original directory) can be
seen in the title of a custom view.
Files in same directory have to be named differently, this doesn't hold
for custom views thus seeing just file names might be rather confusing.
In order to give an idea where files come from and when possible, rela-
tive paths to original directory of the view is displayed, otherwise
full path is used instead.
Custom views normally don't contain any inexistent files.
Navigation
Custom views have some differences related to navigation in regular
views.
gf - acts similar to gf on symbolic links and navigates to the file at
its real
location.
h - go to closes parent node in tree view, otherwise return to the
original directory.
gh - return to the original directory.
Opening ".." entry also causes return to the original directory.
History
Custom list exists only while it's visible, once left one can't return
to it, so there is no appearances of it in any history.
Filters
Only local filter affects content of the view. This is intentional,
presumably if one loads list, precisely that list should be displayed
(except for inexistent paths, which are ignored).
Search
Although directory names are visible in listing, they are not search-
able. Only file names are taken into account (might be changed in fu-
ture, searching whole lines seems quite reasonable).
Sorting
Contrary to search sorting by name works on whole visible part of file
path.
Highlight
Whole file name is highlighted as one entity, even if there are direc-
tory elements.
Updates
Reloads can occur, though they are not automatic due to files being
scattered among different places. On a reload, inexistent files are
removed and meta-data of all other files is updated.
Once custom view forgets about the file, it won't add it back even if
it's created again. So not seeing file previously affected by an oper-
ation, which was undone is normal.
Operations
All operations that add files are forbidden for custom views. For ex-
ample, moving/copying/putting files into a custom view doesn't work,
because it doesn't make much sense.
On the other hand, operations that use files of a custom view as a
source (e.g. yanking, copying, moving file from custom view, deletion)
and operations that modify names are all allowed.
Compare views
Kinds
:compare can produce four different results depending on arguments:
- single compare view (ofone and either listall or listdups);
- single custom view (ofone and listunique);
- two compare views (ofboth and either listall or listdups);
- two custom views (ofboth and listunique).
The first two display files of one file system tree. Here duplicates
are files that have at least one copy in the same tree. The other two
kinds of operation compare two trees, in which duplicates are files
that are found in both trees.
Lists of unique files are presented in custom views because there is no
file grouping to preserve as all file ids are guaranteed to be dis-
tinct.
Creation
Arguments passed to :compare form four categories each with its own
prefix and is responsible for particular property of operation.
Which files to compare:
- ofboth - compares files of two panes against each other;
- ofone - compares files of the same directory.
How files are compared:
- byname - by their name only;
- bysize - only by their size;
- bycontents - by data they contain (combination of size and hash of
small chunk of contents is used as first approximation, so don't worry
too much about large files).
Which files to display:
- listall - all files;
- listunique - unique files only;
- listdups - only duplicated files.
How results are grouped (has no effect if "ofone" specified):
- groupids - files considered identical are always adjacent in out-
put;
- grouppaths - file system ordering is preferred (this also enables
displaying identically named files as mismatches).
Which files to omit:
- skipempty - ignore empty files.
Each argument can appear multiple times, the rightmost one of the group
is considered. Arguments alter default behaviour instead of substitut-
ing it.
Examples
The defaults corresponds to probably the most common use case of com-
paring files in two trees with grouping by paths, so the following are
equivalent:
:compare
:compare bycontents grouppaths
:compare bycontents listall ofboth grouppaths
Another use case is to find duplicates in the current sub-tree:
:compare listdups ofone
The following command lists files that are unique to each pane:
:compare listunique
Look
The view can't switch to ls-like view as it's unable to display diff-
like data.
Comparison views have second column displaying id of the file, files
with same id are considered to be equal. The view columns configura-
tion is predefined.
Behaviour
When two views are being compared against each other the following
changes to the regular behaviour apply:
- views are scrolled synchronously (as if 'scrollbind' was set);
- views' cursors are synchronized;
- local filtering is disabled (its results wouldn't be meaningful);
- zd excludes groups of adjacent identical files, 1zd gives usual be-
haviour;
- sorting is permanently disabled (ordering is fixed);
- removed files hide their counter pairs;
- exiting one of the views terminates the other immediately;
- renaming files isn't blocked, but isn't taken into account and might
require regeneration of comparison;
- entries which indicate absence of equivalent file have empty names
and can be matched as such;
- when unique files of both views are listed custom views can be
empty, this absence of unique files is stated clearly.
One compare view has similar properties (those that are applicable for
single pane).
Files are gathered in this way:
- recursively starting at current location of the view;
- dot files are excluded if view hides them at the moment of compari-
son, file name filters are obeyed as well so you end up comparing what
you see;
- directories are not taken into account;
- symbolic links to directories are ignored.
Startup
On startup vifm determines several variables that are used during exe-
cution. They are determined in the order they appear below.
On *nix systems $HOME is normally present and used as is. On Windows
systems vifm tries to find correct home directory in the following or-
der:
- $HOME variable;
- $USERPROFILE variable (on Windows only);
- a combination of $HOMEDRIVE and $HOMEPATH variables (on Windows
only).
vifm tries to find correct configuration directory by checking the fol-
lowing places:
- $VIFM variable;
- parent directory of the executable file (on Windows only);
- $HOME/.vifm directory;
- $APPDATA/Vifm directory (on Windows only);
- $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vifm directory;
- $HOME/.config/vifm directory.
vifm tries to find correct configuration file by checking the following
places:
- $MYVIFMRC variable;
- vifmrc in parent directory of the executable file (on Windows only);
- $VIFM/vifmrc file.
Configure
See "Startup" section above for the explanations on $VIFM and $MYV-
IFMRC.
The vifmrc file contains commands that will be executed on vifm
startup. There are two such files: global and local. Global one is at
{prefix}/etc/vifm/vifmrc, see $MYVIFMRC variable description for the
search algorithm used to find local vifmrc. Global vifmrc is loaded
before the local one, so that the later one can redefine anything con-
figured globally.
Use vifmrc to set settings, mappings, filetypes etc. To use multi line
commands precede each next line with a slash (whitespace before slash
is ignored, but all spaces at the end of the lines are saved). For ex-
ample:
set
\smartcase
equals "setsmartcase". When
set<space here>
\ smartcase
equals "set smartcase".
The $VIFM/vifminfo file contains generic state of the application. You
can control what is stored in vifminfo by setting 'vifminfo' option.
Vifm always writes this file on exit unless 'vifminfo' option is empty.
Marks, bookmarks, commands, histories, filetypes, fileviewers and reg-
isters in the file are merged with vifm configuration (which has bigger
priority).
Generally, runtime configuration has bigger priority during merging,
but there are some exceptions:
- directory stack stored in the file is not overwritten unless some-
thing is changed in vifm instance that performs merge;
- each mark or bookmark is marked with a timestamp, so that newer
value is not overwritten by older one, thus no matter from where it
comes, the newer one wins;
- all histories are marked with timestamps on storing, this means
that last instance to quit puts its elements on top of the list;
- tabs are merged only if both current instance and stored state con-
tain exactly one tab of any kind.
The $VIFM/scripts directory can contain shell scripts. vifm modifies
its PATH environment variable to let user run those scripts without
specifying full path. All subdirectories of the $VIFM/scripts will be
added to PATH too. Script in a subdirectory overlaps script with the
same name in all its parent directories.
The $VIFM/colors/ and {prefix}/etc/vifm/colors/ directories contain
color schemes. Available color schemes are searched in that order, so
on name conflict the one in $VIFM/colors/ wins.
Each color scheme should have ".vifm" extension. This wasn't the case
before and for this reason the following rules apply during lookup:
- if there is no file with .vifm extension, all regular files are
listed;
- otherwise only files with .vifm extension are listed (with the ex-
tension being truncated).
Sessions
Sessions provide a way to have multiple persistent runtime configura-
tions. Think of them as second-level vifminfo files in addition to the
first-level one used by all sessions. In other words, they aren't a
replacement for vifminfo file that exists without sessions, but an ad-
dition to it. One can empty 'vifminfo' option and rely solely on ses-
sions, but in practice one might want to share some state among in-
stances in different sessions or have an "out-of-sessions" state for
tasks that don't deserve a session of their own.
This leads to a two-level structure where data in session files has
higher priority than data in vifminfo files (where this makes sense)
following the same rules that merging of vifminfo file obeys. In addi-
tion to that, history items from session files are never ordered before
history items from vifminfo file.
Format
Sessions have the format of vifminfo files, they do not consist of se-
quence of command-line commands and are not meant to be sourced via
:source command.
Storage and naming
`$VIFM/sessions/` directory serves as a storage for sessions. Conse-
quently names should be valid filenames. The structure of the storage
is flat meaning that there are no subdirectories, that's why names of
sessions can't contain slashes.
Usage model
Contrary to Vim, vifm automates basic management of sessions. You can
start, switch, stop or delete a session using builtin means.
Current session is saved at the same time vifminfo is saved (on normal
exits or explicitly on :write command) and right before switching to
another session. To avoid saving in those cases use :session command
to detach (without saving) from a session before proceeding.
Related topics
Commands: :session, :delsession
Options: 'sessionoptions'
Variables: v:session
Automatic FUSE mounts
vifm has a builtin support of automated FUSE file system mounts. It is
implemented using file associations mechanism. To enable automated
mounts, one needs to use a specially formatted program line in filetype
or filextype commands. These use special macros, which differ from
macros in commands unrelated to FUSE. Currently three formats are sup-
ported:
1) FUSE_MOUNT This format should be used in case when all information
needed for mounting all files of a particular type is the same. E.g.
mounting of tar files don't require any file specific options.
Format line:
FUSE_MOUNT|mounter %SOURCE_FILE %DESTINATION_DIR [%FOREGROUND]
Example filetype command:
:filetype FUSE_MOUNT|fuse-zip %SOURCE_FILE %DESTINATION_DIR
2) FUSE_MOUNT2 This format allows one to use specially formatted files
to perform mounting and is useful for mounting remotes, for example re-
mote file systems over ftp or ssh.
Format line:
FUSE_MOUNT2|mounter %PARAM %DESTINATION_DIR [%FOREGROUND]
Example filetype command:
:filetype *.ssh FUSE_MOUNT2|sshfs %PARAM %DESTINATION_DIR
Example file content:
root@127.0.0.1:/
3) FUSE_MOUNT3
This format is equivalent to FUSE_MOUNT, but omits unmounting. It is
useful for cases, when unmounting isn't needed, like when using AVFS.
Example :filetype command:
:filetype *.tar,*.tar.bz2,*.tbz2,*.tgz,*.tar.gz,*.tar.xz,*.txz,*.deb
\ {Mount with avfs}
\ FUSE_MOUNT3|mount-avfs %DESTINATION_DIR %SOURCE_FILE
Example `mount-avfs` helper script:
#!/bin/sh
dest=$1
file=$2
rmdir "$dest"
ln -s "$HOME/.avfs$file#/" "$dest"
All % macros are expanded by vifm at runtime and have the following
meaning:
- %SOURCE_FILE is replaced by full path to selected file;
- %DESTINATION_DIR is replaced by full path to mount directory, which
is created by vifm basing on the value of 'fusehome' option;
- %PARAM value is filled from the first line of file (whole line),
though in the future it can be changed to whole file content;
- %FOREGROUND means that you want to run mount command as a regular
command (required to be able to provide input for communication with
mounter in interactive way).
%FOREGROUND is an optional macro. Other macros are not mandatory, but
mount commands likely won't work without them.
%CLEAR is obsolete name of %FOREGROUND, which is still supported, but
might be removed in future. Its use is discouraged.
Unlike macros elsewhere, these are recognized only if they appear at
the end of a command or are followed by a space. There is no way to
escape % either. These are historical limitations, which might be ad-
dressed in the future.
The mounted FUSE file systems will be automatically unmounted in two
cases:
- when vifm quits (with ZZ, :q, etc. or when killed by signal);
- when you explicitly leave mount point going up to its parent direc-
tory (with h, Enter on "../" or ":cd ..") and other pane is not in
the same directory or its child directories.
View look
vifm supports displaying of file list view in two different ways:
- in a table mode, when multiple columns can be set using 'view-
columns' option (see "Column view" section below for details);
- in a multicolumn list manner which looks almost like `ls -x` com-
mand output (see "ls-like view" section below for details).
The look is local for each view and can be chosen by changing value of
the 'lsview' boolean option.
Depending on view look some of keys change their meaning to allow more
natural cursor moving. This concerns mainly h, j, k, l and other simi-
lar navigation keys.
Also some of options can be ignored if they don't affect view display-
ing in selected look. For example value of 'viewcolumns' when 'lsview'
is set.
ls-like view
When this view look is enabled by setting 'lsview' option on, vifm will
display files in multiple columns. Number of columns depends on the
length of the longest file name present in current directory of the
view. Whole file list is automatically reflowed on directory change,
terminal or view resize.
View looks close to output of `ls -x` command, so files are listed left
to right in rows.
In this mode file manipulation commands (e.g. d) don't work line-wise
like they do in Vim, since such operations would be uncommon for file
manipulation tasks. Thus, for example, dd will remove only current
file.
By default the view is filled by lines, 'lsoptions' can be used to get
filling by columns.
Note that tree-view and compare view inhibit ls-like view.
Column view
View columns are described by a comma-separated list of column descrip-
tions, each of which has the following format
[ '-' | '*' ] [ fw ( [ '.' tw ] | '%' ) ] '{' type | literal '}'
'.'{0,3}
where fw stands for full width, tw stands for text width, bar is logi-
cal or, square brackets denote optional parts and curly braces define
range of repetitions for a symbol that precedes them.
So it basically consists of four parts:
1. Optional alignment specifier
2. Optional width specifier
3. Mandatory column name
4. Optional cropping specifier
Alignment specifier
It's an optional minus or asterisk sign as the first symbol of the
string.
Specifies type of text alignment within a column. Three types are sup-
ported:
- left align
set viewcolumns=-{name}
- right align (default)
set viewcolumns={name}
- dynamic align
It's like left alignment, but when the text is bigger than the col-
umn, the alignment is made at the right (so the part of the field is
always visible).
set viewcolumns=*{name}
Width specifier
It's a number followed by a percent sign, two numbers (second one
should be less than or equal to the first one) separated with a dot or
a single number.
Specifies column width and its units. There are three size types:
- absolute size - column width is specified in characters
set viewcolumns=-100{name},20.15{ext}
results in two columns with lengths of 100 and 20 and a reserved
space of five characters on the left of second column.
- relative (percent) size - column width is specified in percents of
view width
set viewcolumns=-80%{name},15%{ext},5%{mtime}
results in three columns with lengths of 80/100, 15/100 and 5/100 of
view width.
- auto size (default) - column width is automatically determined
set viewcolumns=-{name},{ext},{mtime}
results in three columns with length of one third of view width.
There is no size adjustment to content, since it will slow down ren-
dering.
Columns of different sizing types can be freely mixed in one view.
Though sometimes some of columns can be seen partly or be completely
invisible if there is not enough space to display them.
Column contents
This is usually a sorting key surrounded with curly braces, e.g.
{name},{ext},{mtime}
{name} and {iname} types are the same and present both for consistency
with 'sort' option.
Following types don't have corresponding sorting keys:
- {root} - display name without extension (as a complement for
{ext})
- {fileroot} - display name without extension for anything except for
directories and symbolic links to directories (as a complement for
{fileext})
Empty curly braces ({}) are replaced with the default secondary column
for primary sort key. So after the next command view will be displayed
almost as if 'viewcolumns' is empty, but adding ellipsis for long file
names:
set viewcolumns=-{name}..,6{}.
The last kind of column value is a string literal. The literal is used
as a column value for every row. The syntax is "{#literal}", for exam-
ple:
3{#},{#|},{# | }
This can be used to draw column separators. Mind that for convenience
literals have different defaults: truncation and automatically deter-
mined absolute size, which is what you usually want for them. Example:
set viewcolumns=*{name}..,{#|},6{}.
Cropping specifier
It's from one to three dots after closing curly brace in column format.
Specifies type of text truncation if it doesn't fit in the column.
Currently three types are supported:
- truncation - text is truncated
set viewcolumns=-{name}.
results in truncation of names that are too long too fit in the
view.
- adding of ellipsis - ellipsis on the left or right are added when
needed
set viewcolumns=-{name}..
results in that ellipsis are added at the end of too long file
names.
- none (default) - text can pass column boundaries
set viewcolumns=-{name}...,{ext}
results in that long file names can partially be written on the ext
column.
Color schemes
The color schemes in vifm can be applied in two different ways:
- as the primary color scheme;
- as local to a pane color scheme.
Both types are set using :colorscheme command, but of different forms:
- :colorscheme color_scheme_name - for the primary color scheme;
- :colorscheme color_scheme_name directory - for local color schemes.
Look of different parts of the TUI (Text User Interface) is determined
in this way:
- Border, TabLine, TabLineSel, TopLineSel, TopLine, CmdLine, Er-
rorMsg, StatusLine, JobLine, SuggestBox and WildMenu are always de-
termined by the primary color scheme;
- CurrLine, Selected, Directory, Link, BrokenLink, Socket, Device,
Executable, Fifo, CmpMismatch, Win, AuxWin and OtherWin are deter-
mined by primary color scheme and a set of local color schemes,
which can be empty.
There might be a set of local color schemes because they are structured
hierarchically according to file system structure. For example, having
the following piece of file system:
~
`-- bin
|
`-- my
Two color schemes:
# ~/.vifm/colors/for_bin
highlight Win cterm=none ctermfg=white ctermbg=red
highlight CurrLine cterm=none ctermfg=red ctermbg=black
# ~/.vifm/colors/for_bin_my
highlight CurrLine cterm=none ctermfg=green ctermbg=black
And these three commands in the vifmrc file:
colorscheme Default
colorscheme for_bin ~/bin
colorscheme for_bin_my ~/bin/my
File list will look in the following way for each level:
- ~/ - Default color scheme
black background
cursor with blue background
- ~/bin/ - mix of Default and for_bin color schemes
red background
cursor with black background and red foreground
- ~/bin/my/ - mix of Default, for_bin and for_bin_my color schemes
red background
cursor with black background and green foreground
Trash directory
vifm has support of trash directory, which is used as temporary storage
for deleted files or files that were cut. Using trash is controlled by
the 'trash' option, and exact path to the trash can be set with
'trashdir' option. Trash directory in vifm differs from the system-
wide one by default, because of possible incompatibilities of storing
deleted files among different file managers. But one can set
'trashdir' to "~/.local/share/Trash" to use a "standard" trash direc-
tory.
There are two scenarios of using trash in vifm:
1. As a place for storing files that were cut by "d" and may be in-
serted to some other place in file system.
2. As a storage of files, that are deleted but not purged yet.
The first scenario uses deletion ("d") operations to put files to trash
and put ("p") operations to restore files from trash directory. Note
that such operations move files to and from trash directory, which can
be long term operations in case of different partitions or remote
drives mounted locally.
The second scenario uses deletion ("d") operations for moving files to
trash directory and :empty command-line command to purge all previously
deleted files.
Deletion and put operations depend on registers, which can point to
files in trash directory. Normally, there are no nonexistent files in
registers, but vifm doesn't keep track of modifications under trash di-
rectory, so one shouldn't expect value of registers to be absolutely
correct if trash directory was modified not by operation that are meant
for it. But this won't lead to any issues with operations, since they
ignore nonexistent files.
Client-Server
vifm supports remote execution of command-line mode commands, remote
changing of directories and expression evaluation. This is possible
using --remote and --remote-expr command-line arguments.
To execute a command remotely combine --remote argument with -c <com-
mand> or +<command>. For example:
vifm --remote -c 'cd /'
vifm --remote '+cd /'
To change directory not using command-line mode commands one can spec-
ify paths right after --remote argument, like this:
vifm --remote /
vifm --remote ~
vifm --remote /usr/bin /tmp
Evaluating expression remotely might be useful to query information
about an instance, for example its location:
vifm --remote-expr 'expand("%d")'
If there are several running instances, the target can be specified
with --server-name option (otherwise, the first one lexicographically
is used):
vifm --server-name work --remote ~/work/project
List of names of running instances can be obtained via --server-list
option. Name of the current one is available via v:servername.
v:servername
server name of the running vifm instance. Empty if client-
server feature is disabled.
External Renaming
When an editor is run to edit list of file names, contents of the tem-
porary file has the following format:
1. Order of lines correspond to the order of files in a view.
2. Lines that start with a "#" are comments and are ignored.
3. Single backslash at the beginning of a line is ignored, so that a
file starting with a backslash will appear like "\#name".
If an operation was rejected due to issues with file names, next time
you'll see the following in this order:
1. Last error (in comments).
2. Original file names (in comments).
3. Failed list of new names.
Mind that Vim plugin will extract list of original names and show them
in a vertical split.
You can cancel renaming by removing all non-comments from the buffer.
This also erases information about previous edits.
Plugin
Plugin for using vifm in vim as a file selector.
Commands:
:EditVifm select a file or files to open in the current buffer.
:Vifm alias for :EditVifm.
:SplitVifm split buffer and select a file or files to open.
:VsplitVifm vertically split buffer and select a file or files to
open.
:DiffVifm select a file or files to compare to the current file
with
:vert diffsplit.
:TabVifm select a file or files to open in tabs.
Each command accepts up to two arguments: left pane directory and right
pane directory. After arguments are checked, vifm process is spawned
in a special "file-picker" mode. To pick files just open them either
by pressing l, i or Enter keys, or by running :edit command. If no
files are selected, file under the cursor is opened, otherwise whole
selection is passed to the plugin and opened in vim.
The plugin have only two settings. It's a string variable named
g:vifm_term to let user specify command to run GUI terminal. By de-
fault it's equal to 'xterm -e'. And another string variable named
g:vifm_exec, which equals "vifm" by default and specifies path to
vifm's executable. To pass arguments to vifm use g:vifm_exec_args,
which is empty by default.
To use the plugin copy the vifm.vim file to either the system wide
vim/plugin directory or into ~/.vim/plugin.
If you would prefer not to use the plugin and it is in the system wide
plugin directory add
let loaded_vifm=1
to your ~/.vimrc file.
Reserved
The following command names are reserved and shouldn't be used for user
commands.
g[lobal]
v[global]
ENVIRONMENT
VIFM Points to main configuration directory (usually ~/.vifm/).
MYVIFMRC
Points to main configuration file (usually ~/.vifm/vifmrc).
These environment variables are valid inside vifm and also can be used
to configure it by setting some of them before running vifm.
When $MYVIFMRC isn't set, it's made as $VIFM/vifmrc (exception for Win-
dows: vifmrc in the same directory as vifm.exe has higher priority than
$VIFM/vifmrc).
See "Startup" section above for more details.
VIFM_FUSE_FILE
On execution of external commands this variable is set to the
full path of file used to initiate FUSE mount of the closest
mount point from current pane's directory up. It's not set when
outside FUSE mount point. When vifm is used inside terminal
multiplexer, it tries to set this variable as well (it doesn't
work this way on its own).
SEE ALSO
vifm-convert-dircolors(1), vifm-pause(1)
Website: https://vifm.info/
Wiki: https://wiki.vifm.info/
Esperanto translation of the documentation by Sebastian Cyprych:
http://cyprych.neostrada.pl/tekstoj/komputiloj/vifm-help.eo.html
AUTHOR
Vifm was written by ksteen <ksteen@users.sourceforge.net>
And currently is developed by xaizek <xaizek@posteo.net>
vifm 0.12 September 29, 2021 VIFM(1)
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