A little about the utilities on the console that few people know, but they can be useful for both a novice jun and a strong senior.
Why write about it
It is worth writing about utilities (primarily console ones) because I see how many people do not use the power of the console at 100%. Many are limited to simple creation of files, as well as the transition between directories, working in the console. I believe that this is a consequence of the fact that there are few sources in Runet where they could normally tell about utilities, how to work on them, and what they do.
We will evaluate utilities on a 5-point scale. This is done so that you can immediately understand where, in my subjective opinion, one utility is head and shoulders above the other. I am not advocating to use something specific, or to use only command utilities. No, on the contrary, I'm just giving you a choice. Whether or not to use the acquired knowledge, on which I spent a lot of time, is up to you.
I want to say right away that this post contains utilities that I needed directly during development. If you have any suggestions on how to add to this list, please feel free to comment.
Let's go to the list
Navigating directories
ViFM
is a vim-like file manager that is able to quickly navigate between directories and perform any operations on files and directories by entering commands or hotkeys. By default, it consists of two panels (black and white) between which you can switch.
Rating: 3, because in order to use this FM, you will need to learn a bunch of vim-like commands, as well as know vim's hotkeys
mc
(Midnight Commander) is a classic in Linux'e. With it, you can also quickly navigate between directories, change access rights, open files using the built-in editor, and much more. A fairly clear interface is built into the program, where there are hotkeys at the bottom, and two panels at the top (between which you switch using the Tab key).
Rating: 5. This is what a beginner needs and is suitable for an advanced user. You don't need any prior knowledge to fully use this FM.
Cleaning
- another FM with a wim-like layout. However, this time the utility is written in Python, which makes it slower, but at the same time, damn flexible and convenient. You can open files directly from the manager using rifle (a script that looks for which program is suitable to open a given file on your PC). Also available are editing, viewing keyboard shortcuts (separately from the manual, which is called by the :help command), and many other goodies.
Rating: 4. It would be 5 if not for the speed of work
Quick search
Quick search is not available on the Gnome shell, for example. (It talks about fast search including file contents. Gnome, on the other hand, has just a search, and itβs also very slow)
fzf
- a utility for quickly searching among directories, as well as text in a specific array of files. It can be easily replaced by find, but is its faster and more convenient counterpart.
Rating: 5. The utility does its job perfectly.
hf
- another utility for quick search in directories and files. It differs in that some hotkeys are also available and the use of commands in the utility itself is implemented a little more convenient than that of a competitor
Rating: 5
autojump
- a utility for quickly jumping through folders to a specific file.
Editing
Here I will limit myself to a list of utilities. For the editor is something that you use all the time (and if you donβt use it, then all the more you donβt need extra explanations), so here it tastes and color
- Nano (standard Linux editor)
- Vi (another standard Linux editor)
- (just an Emacs config, but changes it so it doesn't look like vanilla Emacs at all)
The terminals themselves
Alacritty (fastest)
- a terminal emulator on Linux / Windows / MacOS, which is considered the fastest (as the author of this terminal writes)
Rating: 4. In my subjective opinion, this is not the most convenient and comfortable terminal.
Hyper (the most beautiful)
is a terminal that deserves you to try it on your system. Its interface is made using CSS/HTML, and it is based on the Electron framework (which of course will make it a little more gluttonous)
Rating: 5. The terminal is comfortable and beautiful. It's extensible and has a lot of features.
Quick help (or search for something)
ddgr
is a command-line utility that allows you to use DuckDuckGo directly from the console.
Rating: 5. The program quickly executes the request and returns the results (of course, because there is no need to load HTML / CSS. Everything is quickly parsed)
tldr
- a replacement for the standard man, which does the same thing, but instead of giving a complete manual for the program, it gives short clippings for quick reference
Grade: 4. Sometimes tldr gives too short help, and also for many programs there is simply no documentation in tldr
howdoi
- parses answers from different sites to questions about programming.
Rating: 3. Often finds answers to completely wrong questions. It is also extremely inconvenient that only one answer is displayed
ships
- a console utility similar to howdoi, but only answers questions about console commands
how2
- a utility similar to howdoi, but giving a choice of which question to look at the answer. (Parsing everything from StackOverflow)
Rating: 5. The best tool for finding solutions quickly
Web development
- a utility for quickly pushing sites to a free (or paid, depending on your requirements) server
- a console utility that tells which tags are supported in browsers
Additional utilities
trash-cli
- a utility for viewing what is contained in the basket
buku
- a utility for quick sorting and storing bookmarks of sites from all browsers.
tmux
- terminal multiplexer. Divides your terminal window into panels. Very handy when you don't have a GUI at all.
text-meme-cli
- a utility for creating text animation on any background.
ascinema
β a utility for writing the chronology of terminal commands to a gif file.
youtube-dl
- a utility for downloading video / audio from Youtube video hosting.
picofeed
- lightweight RSS client for consoles
terminalnews
is another handy RSS client for the console.
And what is the list?
This is a list of utilities that I personally use. Additional list can be found here
I urge you to complete the list with your utilities in the comments. If this post brought at least a little something new to your terminal, I was glad to help.
Only registered users can participate in the survey. , you are welcome.
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Source: habr.com