Last Updated on September 26, 2020
In Operation
At the top left resides [1234] followed by the current directory. This is identical to nnn. The numbers represent 4 contexts which let you explore multiple directories at the same time. They are the equivalent of tabs in a web browser.
Minase’s interface is divided into two parts. The left hand side shows the current directory, and the right hand side displays the contents of the currently selected item.
The software’s main strengths lie in its previewing functionality. You can preview files together with text syntax highlighting. There’s also previews of text auto encoding, audio tags, and archive files (previewing archives needs lsar or bsdtar installed). But its best feature is the ability to preview images using SIXEL graphics. Minase relies on img2sixel, a decoder implementation for these DEC SIXEL graphics1.
Here’s a short video showing previewing images in action. The images are courtesy of John O’Donnell’s Linux at Home series.
We’re not sure how many terminal programs let you preview images using SIXEL graphics. They work fine with xterm using the -ti vt340 flag. But most terminal emulators refuse to display SIXEL graphics.
Strangely, image colors are corrupted in Minase unless we’ve first opened graphic files using lsix.
Minase offers FreeDesktop compliant trash, batch renaming, and UTF-8 support. There’s also the ability to set up bookmarks, and to customize the program’s plugins.
1 SIXEL is one of the image formats for printer and terminal imaging introduced by Digital Equipment Corp.
Next page: Page 3 – Memory usage
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Memory usage
Page 4 – Summary