Re: Two-pane layout for file listing and selection

["Gary V. Vaughan" <gary@...>]

Hi Brett,

On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:51 AM, Brett Taylor <brettayl@gmail.com> wrote:
> is there any Lua library/module that would allow me to have two directory listings side-by-side (just like in old-style two-pane file managers, e.g. Norton Commander)?
> Any piece of code would be very useful, even if it did not have the file managing functions (copy, rename, delete, etc) implemented, as I can add them later. 
> 
> What I need most is a working two-pane layout for the file directories, possibly with file selection capability.
> 
> I would greatly appreciate if you could point me to some Lua project that has already implemented a (two-pane) setup similar to the one described above, even if not for the purposes of file management, so that I don't have to start from scratch. I would just make the required modifications to fit my needs.

GNU Zile is a multi-buffer, multipane microemacs.  At one end of the scale you could reuse the luaposix/curses window and buffer management code to build a standalone file-manager, right through to the other end of the scale of contributing dired implementation patches for inclusion in a future release.  Bear in mind this is an FSF project under the GPL, not the usual Lua MIT/X11 terms, which has implications.

GNU Zile recently rebranded itself from "Zile is Lossy Emacs" to "Zile Implements Lua Editors", and there is an early test release available in LuaRocks (luarocks install zile), which will get you zmacs (the editor formerly known as zile).  Things are still in flux in git, but pull-requests are welcome:

  http://github.com/gvvaughan/zile

Additionally, if you don't care to deal with lisp and emacsims, master HEAD in git contains another editor, zz, also built on the new zile framework, but with the lisp interpreter ripped out and a Lua sandbox exposed in its place.  I have some unmerged coloring and syntax highlighting code for Zz in another branch from an earlier revision that will make its way into master over time too, so that might be a better starting point for you.

Feel free to contact me on the zile list at help-zile@gnu.org if you need anything else.

Cheers,
-- 
Gary V. Vaughan (gary AT vaughan DOT pe)

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