what

treemonger is a disk space usage visualizer, inspired by the old version of spacemonger

I like spacemonger because of a few details of its treemap rendering method, all of which contribute to considerably better "readability" than every other related tool I have tried.

• it uses the squarify subdivision rules (or similar),
• it shows the directory hierarchy with thin but nonzero margins,
• it does not use "cushion" or "profile" gradients, but rather color for depth, and filename labels for maximum glanceable information,
• it displays directory labels, at the cost of a bit of accuracy in relative sizing (IMO sizing in this sort of tool is mainly useful for ranking, rather than fine comparison, so the loss of accuracy isn't a problem).

The main motivation for treemonger is to replicate this treemap method. Unlike spacemonger, It is intended to work on Linux and Mac, in addition to Windows.

treemonger is a GUI app out of necessity; TUI tools like ncdu also have their place, but the pixel-level effect I'm looking for requires a canvas.

In lieu of a fully-featured GUI, the app window is just a canvas. UI actions are accessible via keyboard/mouse shortcuts and a context menu.

example:

install

pip install -r requirements.txt

one hard requirement:

• tkinter

can be used if available:

• pyperclip (clipboard functionality)
• magic (additional file details)

run

./treemonger.py                                 # run in current directory
./treemonger.py ~/Downloads                     # specify directory
./treemonger.py --file="/path/to/archive-file"  # display previously archived scan
./treemonger.py --file                          # display most recent archived scan
./treemonger.py --skip-mount                    # try to avoid scanning things like network drives
./treemonger.py --exclude-dir="foo"             # can be repeated
./treemonger.py --exclude-file="bar"            # can be repeated
./treemonger.py --exclude-filter="regex"        # can be repeated

Default values for certain flags can be defined via the configuration file.

config

treemonger looks for a local configuration file at ~/.config/treemonger.json. If that file is not found, it uses the default config.json file included in the repository.

Values in the config file are replaced or extended (for list-valued flags) by any supplied command-line flags.

Config sections include:

• flags: basic program behavior flags
• mouse: UI mouse event definitions
• keyboard: UI keyboard event definitions
• tk_renderer: low-level rendering parameters; adjust these at your own risk
• colormap (not yet implemented)

UI

UI actions are customizable, with default configuration:

• mouse<1>: info (left click in ubuntu)
• ctrl+mouse<1>: info
• mouse<2>: copy_path (middle click in ubuntu)
• mouse<3>: context_menu (right click in ubuntu)
• mouse<4>: zoom_out (wheel up in ubuntu)
• mouse<5>: zoom_in (wheel down in ubuntu)
• "Down": zoom_in (down arrow)
• "Up": zoom_out (up arrow)
• "c": copy_path
• "d": delete_tree (${\color{red}WORK\ IN\ PROGRESS,\ SET\ SAFE\_MODE=False\ TO\ USE}$)
• "i": info
• "m": cycle_mode (not yet implemented)
• "o": open_location
• "q": quit
• "r": refresh
• "ctrl+r": refresh
• "t": zoom_top

Actions are simple member functions in renderers/tk.py:TreemongerApp.

(Mouse button mapping in tk is platform-dependent. Rather than try to interpret what they mean in a coherent way, I chose to make the interface fully customizable: update the config file to whatever works for you.)

Modifier keys are supported. Check config.json for examples.

future work

• refactor things to enable delete/refresh to work properly
• fix glitchy rendering/clipping (probably requires a new rendering engine)
• different display/sizing modes