Ranger Notes

I am planing on totally changing to the terminal based file manager: ranger.

And this is my cheatsheet on using it, for more detailed guides you can go check the ranger official user guide¹.

launch

I use $mod+Shift+Return to launch my ranger, and this keybinding is set in the i3 config file as below.

1
2

# ~/.config/i3/config
bindsym $mod+Shift+Return exec cd "$(xcwd)" && exec st -e "ranger"

Here I also use xcwd² to get my current working directory, so I can launch ranger from that directory.

Key bindings and hints

• g: navigation and tabs
• r: open with
• y: yank
• d: cut/delete
• p: paste
• o: sort
• .: filter_stack ??
• z: settings
• u: undo
• M: linemode
• +, -, =: rights
• Alt+N: switch(Tab), create tab

configuration files

under ~/.config/ranger/ folder, there are 4 main configuration files:

• rc.conf: the main config, various key bindings and switches
• rfile.conf: how to open a file
• scope.sh: how to preview a file
• commands.py: implement various commands (functions), you can add your custom commands here.

Bookmarks

• m<key>: bookmark current folder
• '<key>: go to a bookmark
• um<key>: remove a bookmark

Select/Mark files

• SPC: mark current file
• v: invert selection (easy to select all)
• V: visual mode, to mark a range of files
• :mark REGEX, :unmark REGEX: to mark/unmark with regex expression.
• uv, :unmark: unmark all files

Macros

• %f: the highlighted file
• %d: the path of the current directory
• %s: the selected files in the current directory
• %t: the tagged files in the current directory
• %c: the full pathes of the currently copied/cut files
• %p: the full pathes of selected files

Rename, Create Files & Folders

• cw: to rename selected file or files (bulk rename, works great with :flat)
• :mkdir: create directory
• :touch: create file

TODO drag and drop

https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Drag-and-Drop