Grid view doesn't work

[Vistaus]

Grid view doesn't seem to work in 0.10.1 - it just displays a downward list. Even if I explicitly tell Exa to use e.g. 8 columns, it keeps displaying a downward list.

-Exa version: 0.10.1
-OS: Deepin 20.2 (based on Debian 10)
-Terminal Emulator: Deepin Terminal

Could you please look into this? If you need more information, please let me know.

[Vistaus]

Actually, it does seem to work now, but only in a few select folders.

[ariasuni]

Are you sure you’re not misusing COLUMNS (it doesn’t configure the number of colums in grid mode, but the terminal width used by exa)? If not, please give examples with the exact command and output, and the content of the relevant environment variables.

[Vistaus]

I've never used the columns command before, so I don't think I'm misusing it.

I'm using exa -lGh

It seems to work in e.g. my home folder, but in other folders, it doesn't display any grid.

[ariasuni]

OK but then what do you mean by:

Even if I explicitly tell Exa to use e.g. 8 columns

?

It seems to work in e.g. my home folder, but in other folders, it doesn't display any grid.

Well I can’t reproduce, and my home folder is different from your home folder so I can’t attempt reproducing your issue…

[Vistaus]

I meant export EXA_GRID_ROWS=xxx doesn't make it work.

[ariasuni]

The purpose of EXA_GRID_ROWS is to disable the grid if the produced grid would have a number of rows inferior to the value of EXA_GRID_ROWS. Did you set it globally somewhere? That may the problem.

If not: it’s exhausting to ask you for details so please take the time to check and report the environment variables used to configure exa, and an example of incorrect output used by exa, this way I can attempt to reproduce your problem.

[Vistaus]

I also tried without EXA_GRID_ROWS and the problem still exists. I installed Exa from the Debian repos, so the environment variables should be as expected. I did not alter them in any way.

I attached two screenshots, where you can see that it displays a grid in my home folder but not in my Downloads folder. (as an example)

[ariasuni]

You have a file with a very long name so there’s no place to create another column.

Adding an option to shorten long file names is tracked at #488.

[Vistaus]

A, so that's the issue. I'll keep track of #488 then. Thanks for your support -I really appreciate it! 🙂

[Vistaus]

After how many lines is it supposed to show a grid? 'Cause I now cleared out my Downloads folder, only keeping files with short names, but it still doesn't show a grid.

[ariasuni]

exa tries to create a grid (with three spaces between columns), and print it if it fits. So in your screenshot, it needs your longest line among the first 5 files + 4 spaces (apparently) + the longest line among the last 4 files; you probably lack 20 characters for it to fit.

But just adjust your terminal font size or something and test it, you’ll see that if it can, exa will use the full width. Here a screenshot that shows it (it’s not obvious but the s from «téléchargements» is on the last column of my terminal):

[Vistaus]

Hmm, adjusting the font size didn't change anything, but your screenshot clearly shows it's working, so it must be something on my end then. I'll play a bit more with it then. Thanks again for helping me - I really appreciate it! 🙂

[SunPodder]

I installed exa from the package repo and that works fine. But if I build it from source with cargo build the grid doesn't work. I didn't changed anything in the code. How to solve this?

@ariasuni

I also tried with exa -G. But no luck

[eggbean]

Yes, I have started experiencing this bug now because I have started using the nix package manager version of exa, when I was using the binary from the last release before. It's very irritating.

In this picture first I use the release binary, then I use the buggy version from nix. Then I delete some of the files in the directory and try again.

It seems that now exa doesn't list horizontally when the single line is wider than the terminal window. For some reason it doesn't make any additional rows and instead lists vertically.