Qian (wip)

Qian is an hackable micro File explorer for OSX, written in Elm and Electron. The name Qian come from the name of Zhang Qian, a Chinese explorer. (aha get it ?)

Tl;dr

Since I'm on Mac, I mainly use the terminal to navigate my files because I do not like much Finder (I don't really have any arguments ...). So I decided to build a small file explorer (mainly to navigate my documents) that would fit perfectly to my needs.

I used Elm because I wanted to learn how to use it, and Electron because I want to prototype quickly.

Philosophy

The main goal of this project is not to create a revolutionary software. Just build a useful software for me. The idea is to implement features only when I need them.

If you see any changes to the code, do not hesitate to make an issue or pull-request! In addition, if a feature seems interesting to implement, let's talk about it in an issue!

Usage

• npm install -g elm (to install Elm)
• make install to fetch the NPM dependancies
• make build to build the application
• make run to run the buildt application
• make (a combo of make build and make run)
• make app to create a runnable app on OSX

Shortcuts

• Tab : toggle the focus on the searchbar
• Cmd + Alt + Enter : Open the current folder in finder
• Cmd + Enter : Open the current folder in a terminal
• Cmd + < : Go on the pred view (if it exists)
• Cmd + > : Go on the next view (if it exists)
• Cmd + Shift + Space : Go to the parent (if it exists)

About the search bar

Using Tab you can toggle the search-bar activation. When you write text into this bar, the content of the folder will be filtered using a fuzzy-filtering. If you write /, Qian will open the first element of the result of the filtering.

Credits

• @radmen: add the support of Fuzzy-Search (using a NoRedink's package)
• @julien-leclercq: Makefile improvement
• @xvw: everything else... (I think :P)

Tools

• Dotgrid (for the logo)
• Elm (to have a nice language)
• Electron (to have a window !)
• Font Awesome (for the icon in the UI)
• NoRedInk Simple Fuzzy (for the Fuzzy Searching)