vkl - a better “ls”-experience

This Python script is a wrapper for the GNU/Linux ls-tool for simple cases. To be precise, it’s a substitute (only) for the following command:

ls -lt --all --reverse --directory --classify --color=auto

In contrast to the standard ls output, this script visualizes time in a much better way:

Normal ls command is listing all files without proper way to visualize brand-new, new, old, and very old files. By introducing horizontal bars that sub-divide the output in a pseudo-logarithmical way, the user gets a much better feeling on the age of the items in the current directory.

• Target group: users of a GNU/UNIX command line or similar
• Hosted on github: https://github.com/novoid/guess-filename.py

By the way: yes, I tried to get this functionality to the GNU project to be included to ls. I failed miserably. To me, they don’t seem to add such features for many years. Very conservative :-(

Installation

Get it from GitHub or install it via «pip install vkl».

Usage

vkl --help

Usage:
         vkl <options>

This tool lists the current directory content in various metric
GNU ls does not provide.

:copyright: (c) 2010 by Karl Voit <tools@Karl-Voit.at>
:license: GPL v3 or any later version
:bugreports: <tools@Karl-Voit.at>

Options:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  -l, --log          displays directory content by a pseudo logarithmic time
                     (default option)
  -m, --mtime        sort items using modification time (default option)
  -c, --ctime        sort items using change time
  -a, --atime        sort items using access time
  -d, --delegate     delegate additional arguments to ls command
  -p, --primitivels  use primitive output of directory rather than using GNU
                     ls
  --debug            enable (senseless) debug output

Examples:

vkl

… the simplest case, sorted by modification time

vkl -c

… sorted by change time

vkl -p

… using its own (primitive, self-written) output to circumvent output issues or to use it on non-GNU/UNIX system

How to Thank Me

I’m glad you like my tools. If you want to support me:

• Send old-fashioned postcard per snailmail - I love personal feedback!
  • see my address
• Send feature wishes or improvements as an issue on GitHub
• Create issues on GitHub for bugs
• Contribute merge requests for bug fixes
• Check out my other cool projects on GitHub

Local Variables