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Exa: An alternative to Ls

the.exa.website

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Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#41

Post by gizdan »

theamk wrote: post #3

I have nothing against exa, but the two examples in this post are are not correct for any sort of recent system. > Here’s an example. exa, by default, runs the stat system call on every file it encounters. So does "ls" ... for at least last 20 years. Just checked on random Ubuntu system I had -- executables and dirs are highlighted with different colors. > exa makes heavy use of colours, treating them as opt-out rath…

It does a little more than that. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29015973

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#42

Post by zamadatix »

kbd wrote: post #36

The main thing I use Exa for is as a better "tree": et() { exa -alT --git -I'.git|node_modules|.mypy_cache|.pytest_cache|.venv' --color=always "$@" | less -R; } alias et1='et -L1' alias et2='et -L2' alias et3='et -L3' Exa is great for this because it shows file details along with the tree hierarchy. (I have to manually specify a bunch of git-ignores because Exa's git ignore support doesn't work properly.)

Tree does have some options for file details as well, -p is the same as ls -l or and/or you can use options like -hug individually. -hugDC for dates and some coloring too.

Maybe not as great as exa but not bad for the classic option.

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#43

Post by eminence32 »

gizdan wrote: post #31
kkoncevicius wrote: post #21

Main feature here seems to be colors, but GNU `ls` can also color files based on their file extension and also differentiate between pipes, executables, and working and broken links [1]. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/dirc...

It does a lot more than just colours. It has git integrations, a more concise output, built-in tree, grid view, icons (note they're not showing correctly in below output) and much more. $ ll drwxrwxr-x - dan 27 Oct 15:12 -I  .idea .rw-rw-r-- 15 dan 9 Sep 11:44 -N  .tool-versions drwxrwxr-x - dan 9 Sep 11:53 -I  dist drwxrwxr-x - dan 23 Sep 18:53 --  docs .rw-rw-r-- 376 dan 29 Jun 12:26 -I  some-project.iml drwxr…

> icons (note they're not showing correctly in below output)

This is often my biggest annoyance with command line tools that rely on dedicate fonts and private use icons. The functionality is great, but making sure you've got the right fonts installed on every machine/terminal is sometimes tedious enough that I give up on things like exa.

These days I think exa does not show icons by default, which is I think the right decision.

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#44

Post by bikeshaving »

I wish the authors thought a little bit more about the actual physicality of typing out commands. `exa` on a QWERTY keyboard is typed on one hand, across three rows, and with the weakest fingers. I guess I could put this into muscle memory, but I expect an `ls` like command to be ergonomic to some degree and I see myself making a lot of typos.

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#45

Post by claytonjy »

idsout wrote: post #32
claytonjy wrote: post #29

I've been loving all the new rust-based CLI tools; you can find a lot of them here [0]. So far I've used ripgrep, fd-find, sd, exa, bat. I care less about speed and more about ease-of-use and beautiful output. Another bonus is standardized tooling between Mac and Linux; little bsd differences have been driving me nuts since I took a job that forced me into a MacBook, but these tools solve that issue and are easy to i…

> little bsd differences have been driving me nuts since I took a job that forced me into a MacBook, but these tools solve that issue and are easy to install with Homebrew. I'm in the same boat as you - I love the the rust-based CLI tools. I would also recommend installing the GNU coreutils via homebrew ( https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/coreutils ). This lets you run the GNU coreutils by prefixing them with a `g`, l…

Oh that's neat, thanks. Given you also use the rust tools, where do you find yourself reaching for the g* tools?

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#46

Post by dopu »

bikeshaving wrote: post #44

I wish the authors thought a little bit more about the actual physicality of typing out commands. `exa` on a QWERTY keyboard is typed on one hand, across three rows, and with the weakest fingers. I guess I could put this into muscle memory, but I expect an `ls` like command to be ergonomic to some degree and I see myself making a lot of typos.

I guess. Nothing’s stopping you from remapping ‘ls’ to exa. That’s what I did.

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#48

Post by 5- »

one surprising interaction with ls i had recently was that it coloured files with capabilities differently, but it was pretty difficult to figure out what was going on.

and that looks like a recent change, as in 2012 someone complained that ls didn't distinguish those at all: https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/LsShowCapabil...

so i had an executable that was behaving unexpectedly, somewhat similar to the linked write-up, which ls showed with black text on red background. for a while, until i remembered about capabilities, i couldn't figure out what the unusual colour meant. eventually i found the word 'capability' buried in https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Gene...

compared to that, exa seems to be a bit more obvious with its '@' indicator (it would be nice if it was documented in the man page and not just in https://the.exa.website/features/long-view) and the -@ option to print xattr/capability names.

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#49

Post by 5- »

bikeshaving wrote: post #44

I wish the authors thought a little bit more about the actual physicality of typing out commands. `exa` on a QWERTY keyboard is typed on one hand, across three rows, and with the weakest fingers. I guess I could put this into muscle memory, but I expect an `ls` like command to be ergonomic to some degree and I see myself making a lot of typos.

see also: https://github.com/mtoyoda/sl

(available packaged in most linux/bsd distributions)

Re: Exa: An alternative to Ls

#50

Post by kelvie »

dopu wrote: post #46
bikeshaving wrote: post #44

I wish the authors thought a little bit more about the actual physicality of typing out commands. `exa` on a QWERTY keyboard is typed on one hand, across three rows, and with the weakest fingers. I guess I could put this into muscle memory, but I expect an `ls` like command to be ergonomic to some degree and I see myself making a lot of typos.

I guess. Nothing’s stopping you from remapping ‘ls’ to exa. That’s what I did.

I've been doing this -- it's annoying for things like "ls -rt" and other commands that you may or may not use often.
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