Opening the configuration file
The configuration file is called conf.toml and is in TOML.
This file's location follows the XDG convention, which depends on your system settings. This location in your case can be found on the help screen (use ?).
From this screen you can directly open the configuration file in your system's editor by typing :os (shorcut for :open_stay).
Currently, you can configure
- default flags
- special paths
- verbs and shortcuts
- style
The default configuration file contains several example sections that you may uncomment and modify for your goals.
Default flags
Broot accepts a few flags at launch (the complete list is available with broot --help.
For example, if you want to see hidden files (the ones whose name starts with a dot) and the status of files related to git, you launch broot with
br -gh
If you almost always want those flags, you may define them as default in the conf.toml file, with the default_flags setting:
default_flags = "gh"
Those flags can still be overriden at launch with the negating ones. For example if you don't want to see hidden files at a specific launch, do
br -H
Mouse Capture
Broot usually captures the mouse so that you can click or double click on items. If you want to disable this capture, you may add this:
capture_mouse = false
Special Paths
You may map special paths to specific behaviors. You may especially want
- to have some link to a directory to always automatically be handled as a normal directory
- to exclude some path because it's on a slow device or non relevant
Example configuration:
[special-paths]
"/media/slow-backup-disk" = "no-enter"
"/home/dys/useless" = "hide"
"/home/dys/my-link-I-want-to-explore" = "enter"
Be careful that those paths (globs, in fact) are checked a lot when broot builds trees and that defining a lot of paths will impact the overall speed.
Search Modes
It's possible to redefine the mode mappings, for example if you usually prefer to do exact searches:
[search-modes]
"<empty>" = "regex name"
"/" = "fuzzy path"
"z/" = "regex path"
Note: I'd insist on you not overwriting default mode mappings before you master how broot is used and what those modes exactly work.
Columns order
You may change the order of file attributes in file lists.
The cols_order property, if specified, must be a permutation of "gbpdscn" where every char denotes a column:
- g : Git file info
- b : branch (shows the depth and parent in the tree)
- p : permissions (mode, user, group)
- d : last modification date
- s : size (with size bar when sorting)
- c : count, number of files in directories
- n : file name
The default value is
cols_order = "gscpdbn"
If you prefer to have the branchs left of the tree (as was the default in broot prior 0.18.1) you can use
cols_order = "gbpdscn"
The n column should be kept at end as it's the only one with a variable size.