v1.11.0

Mouse-driven text selection in the content pane, plus content copy in line-select mode.

Added

• Ambient mouse text selection. Click-drag anywhere in the content pane during normal navigation to select text character-by-character; release to copy ("Copied selection"). Works in wrapped views, and Shift+drag still gives the terminal's native selection. Thanks @j-pollack!
• Mouse text selection in line-select mode, character-by-character with a live highlight as you drag.
• y/Y in line-select mode copy the selected content (byte-faithful, no line-number gutter, indentation preserved), while Enter keeps copying the path:line / path:start-end reference.

Changed

• In line-select mode, a mouse press now places the selection caret (previously a click placed the line marker and a double-click copied); copying is now always an explicit Enter/y.

Fixed

• Open-in-tab (prefix+shift+f) no longer jumps to a viewer in another workspace (#83). Invoking the tab action from a different workspace now opens a fresh viewer in the current workspace instead of switching you to the other workspace's tab. Within-workspace open-or-switch-or-toggle is unchanged.
• Left gap in the rendered-markdown and diff views (#82). These views now sit one column in from the content pane's left border, matching the gap syntax-highlighted files already get from their line-number gutter.

Full changelog: v1.10.0...v1.11.0

v1.10.0

Added

• Reveal in file manager / open with default app. Two new read-only, non-blocking keyboard hand-offs on the selected tree entry:

  • O — open the selected file or directory with the OS default application
  • R — reveal the selected entry in the OS file manager (highlighted)

  Each hands off to the host OS (macOS open / open -R, Linux xdg-open, Windows explorer / explorer /select,) and never blocks the viewer. Requested in #68.

Install / update: herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer

v1.9.0

Added

Copy a line reference — L line-select mode

With the content pane focused (or zoomed), press L to enter line-select mode:

• A marker appears on the top visible source line. j/k (or ↑/↓) move it; hold Shift (J/K, or Shift+↑/↓) to extend a selection.
• Enter — or a double-click — copies the repo-relative reference to the clipboard over OSC 52, the same path as y/Y:
  • a single line → src/app.rs:42
  • a range → src/app.rs:42-58
• A mouse click places the marker; a double-click copies. Esc exits.
• Entering from a rendered-markdown or diff view first switches that file to the line-numbered source view, since line numbers only map there.
• L stays focus-gated: with the tree focused it still performs the tree's horizontal scroll (unchanged).
• Correct under the w wrap toggle — the marker, mouse click, and copied reference map through the wrapped layout, so they land on the right source line.

Read-only, zero new dependencies.

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Also in this release: internal test hardening so the full CI matrix (including windows-latest) is green — two hostile-filename tests that can't run on Windows are now unix-gated, with no loss of sanitizer coverage.

v1.8.0

Native Windows support (preview)

The viewer now builds and runs natively on Windows (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc), alongside Linux and macOS.

Install (herdr preview channel):

herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer --ref v1.8.0

Summon it:

herdr plugin action invoke open-file-viewer-windows --plugin herdr-file-viewer

Prereqs: Git for Windows on PATH; optionally glow/bat/delta (winget) for rendered output — without them files show as plain text.

Windows is preview — best-effort, no Windows-on-ARM and no code-signing. Keybindings via [[keys.command]] are blocked by a herdr-side limitation (ogulcancelik/herdr#1041); use action invoke for now.

Thanks to @anirudhsk-official / @sanirudh17 for validating on real hardware (#58).

v1.8.0-preview.3

Preview build for Windows testing — not a stable release. Isolated from stable users: herdr plugin install (no --ref) still serves v1.7.0, and the in-app update check ignores pre-release tags.

v1.8.0-preview.3 — reworks the Windows launcher based on live real-hardware testing (thanks @anirudhsk-official 🙏). The viewer itself was proven to render correctly on Windows; the earlier previews just couldn't launch it automatically.

What changed since preview.2 (GH #58)

The real root cause: herdr on Windows can't spawn a plugin's relative command — it passes the relative program name to CreateProcessW, which resolves it against herdr's own directory (not any --cwd), so it always failed ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND. So the Windows launcher now spawns the viewer by absolute path (pane split / tab create + pane run), rooted at your focused pane's directory, and the actions locate their launcher script by asking herdr for its own plugin folder. Proven working end-to-end on real hardware.

Prerequisites (Windows)

• herdr on its preview channel (Windows binaries ship only there).
• Git for Windows on PATH — herdr uses it to install the plugin, and the viewer uses it for the tree's git status + diffs.
• Windows Terminal.
• Optional renderers for pretty output (without them, files show as plain text — that's the intended fallback, not a bug):

  winget install charmbracelet.glow
  winget install sharkdp.bat
  winget install dandavison.delta
  

  Install these before starting herdr (or restart herdr afterward) so it picks them up on PATH.

Install

herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer --ref v1.8.0-preview.3

Pulls a SHA-256-verified prebuilt .exe — no Rust toolchain needed.

Try it

Bind a key (in ~/.config/herdr/config.toml), or invoke the action directly:

herdr plugin action invoke open-file-viewer-windows --plugin herdr-file-viewer

The viewer should open in a split on the right, rooted at your current pane's directory. Press again to focus/close it. Tab variant: open-file-viewer-tab-windows.

Known limitation

The type = "shell" keybinding spawn appears to be a herdr-side issue on Windows (the identical action invoke works when typed) — being tracked upstream. Mouse clicks inside the pane also depend on herdr forwarding mouse events; the viewer is fully keyboard-driven regardless (? shows all keys).

v1.8.0-preview.2

Preview build for Windows testing — not a stable release. Isolated from stable users: herdr plugin install (no --ref) still serves v1.7.0, and the in-app update check ignores pre-release tags.

This is v1.8.0-preview.2, which carries fixes for the launch-layer issues found testing preview.1 on real Windows (thanks @anirudhsk-official 🙏).

Fixed since preview.1 (GH #58)

Root cause: herdr runs plugin commands against a \\?\ extended-length (verbatim) working directory on Windows, which the OS doesn't normalize — so relative command paths (and / / .) failed with ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND (os error 3).

• Pane launch — the Windows launcher now opens the viewer with an explicit clean --cwd <plugin-root>, so herdr resolves the relative command against a normalizable path instead of the \\?\ server cwd.
• .exe — a distinct Windows pane entry (file-viewer-windows) names the .exe explicitly (herdr does not append it).
• Action launch — the Windows actions re-derive the launcher script's absolute path from the cwd (stripping any \\?\ prefix) instead of a relative -File.

Known limitation

The type = "shell" keybinding spawn (os error 3 even when the identical herdr plugin action invoke … works when typed) appears to be a herdr-side issue, independent of this plugin — so please test via herdr plugin action invoke first (see the issue thread).

Install (Windows, herdr preview channel)

herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer --ref v1.8.0-preview.2

Pulls a SHA-256-verified prebuilt .exe — no Rust toolchain needed.

v1.8.0-preview.1

Windows support (preview) — pre-release for real-hardware validation

This is a pre-release cut so the native-Windows build can be validated on real hardware (see #58) before it ships in a stable release. It is not a normal release:

• Stable users are unaffected. herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer still installs v1.7.0 (it tracks main, which is unchanged), and the in-app update check ignores pre-release tags — so no one is nudged toward this build.
• Windows is best-effort / preview, mirroring herdr's own Windows posture — not a parity guarantee.

Install this preview (Windows)

Prereqs: herdr on its preview channel (herdr's Windows binaries ship only there), and Windows Terminal.

herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer --ref v1.8.0-preview.1

This downloads the SHA-256-verified prebuilt herdr-file-viewer-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.exe — no Rust toolchain required. (On Linux/macOS you can install the same ref to try it there too.)

What's included

Native Windows (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc): platform seams (git path decoding, NUL device, %LOCALAPPDATA% cache, quote-aware $EDITOR + absolute-path Notepad default, .exe resolution), a PowerShell install script + launcher scripts, and an advisory windows-latest CI job. Full test suite is green on windows-latest. Zero new dependencies.

On Windows, bind the -windows action ids

herdr requires unique action ids, so the Windows launchers register as open-file-viewer-windows and open-file-viewer-tab-windows (the unqualified ids are the Linux/macOS variants):

command = "herdr plugin action invoke open-file-viewer-windows --plugin herdr-file-viewer"

Please test & report on #58

Open the viewer (split + tab), navigate the tree, view diffs / rendered markdown / highlighted code, try search (/), go-to-file (f), go-to-line (:), the editor hand-off (e), and copy-path (y/Y). Anything that panics, hangs, or renders wrong — please note it on the issue. Your validation is what lets us drop the "preview" label later.

v1.7.0

herdr-file-viewer v1.7.0

The audit-driven Optimisations release: accessibility, UX papercuts, test-suite hardening, and a
large internal refactor — all behavior-compatible with v1.6.0.

Added

• Keyboard tree horizontal scroll — H / L (Shift+h/l): scroll the tree pane sideways for
  long or deeply-nested rows, mirroring the content pane's ←/→. Closes the last mouse-only gap
  (AC-18, keyboard-first). Lowercase h/l still collapse/expand.
• A ? help hint on the content pane's bottom border, so the help overlay is discoverable
  without guessing.
• Empty-state guidance for blank panes (Directory — select a file to view, No files) instead
  of a blank void.

Changed

• Non-color accessibility cues alongside color-only signals (survive a colorblind palette or a
  non-default theme): a ● glyph on dirty directories, a ▶ marker on the active help tab, a
  (current) label on the current worktree, and a REVERSED|BOLD current-search-match.
• Cleaner failure messages: renderer-fallback notices name the missing tool and point to
  docs/renderers.md instead of leaking a raw OS error; editor hand-off now distinguishes a launch
  failure from a non-zero editor exit.
• Docs: git documented as a runtime requirement; docs/renderers.md corrected (bundled glow
  palette; only delta/bat are cargo-installable); ARCHITECTURE.md updated for the new proc
  module and the controller/ package layout.
• Internal: shared proc::wait_bounded subprocess reaper; controller.rs split from one
  3,256-line god-module into a controller/ package (core + mouse/help/finder/picker/
  infile/git_apply submodules), with the open overlay collapsed into a single Modal enum so
  "at most one modal open" is type-enforced. Behavior-preserving.

Fixed

• No stale content under a new title while an off-thread render is in flight — the pane shows a
  Rendering… placeholder and the title + body switch to the new file together.

Test/CI hardening

• Perf-budget stopwatch tests gated behind a perf cargo feature; search_perf/index_perf
  rewritten as relative-scaling asserts that catch O(n²) without flaking on a loaded runner; pty e2e
  tests switched to wait-for-content. A real read-only-invariant test routing every intent through
  the handler, a modal×intent guard matrix, table-driven git-parser tests, and an OSC-52 ingestion
  test.

Full changelog: see CHANGELOG.md.
No breaking changes; same install path.

v1.6.0

A batch of navigation and help features on top of v1.5.0 — read-only as always, no breaking changes.

Added

• Go to file (f) — a fuzzy finder over every file in the tree: type to filter, ↑/↓ to move, Enter to open. (#51)
• Go to line (:) — jump the content pane to a line number; in a rendered-markdown or diff view it switches to the line-numbered content view to make the jump. (#54)
• Search in file (/, n/N) — incremental, smartcase, literal match highlighting that works in every view; Enter commits, n/N cycle through matches and wrap at the ends. (#55)
• In-app help overlay (?) — a view-only overlay with What's New (the changelog, rendered as markdown) and About (version · repo · license · update status). (#56)
• The tree names its root and branch — the tree column's top border shows the root directory and its bottom border the current git branch. (#52)

Changed

• Installing reuses the latest released binary even when main is ahead of the tag — matched by version rather than exact commit, so landing a PR no longer forces new users to compile while a release is pending. (#50)

Fixed

• The worktree picker's ← responds immediately after over-scrolling right. (#52)

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Install / update: herdr plugin install smarzban/herdr-file-viewer — prebuilt binaries (macOS arm64 + x86_64, Linux x86_64) are SHA-256 verified, with a source-build fallback.

v1.5.0

Added

• Scrollbars on the tree and content panes — a vertical bar when there's more than fits, a
  horizontal bar when a row or unwrapped line runs wider than the pane. They show only where
  there's something to scroll, sit just inside the pane, and are draggable with the mouse
  (drag ↕/↔, or click the track to jump). Dragging the tree's vertical bar scrubs the selection.
• Horizontal tree scrolling so a long or deeply-nested file name can be read in full — via the
  horizontal wheel or by dragging the tree's horizontal scrollbar.
• Hide hidden files (.) — a toggle that drops dot-prefixed files/folders from the tree (handy
  in a $HOME full of them). Independent of the gitignore toggle (i), off by default. (#46)

Fixed

• The tree now scrolls to follow the selection — on a long list it used to stay pinned to the
  top, so moving the cursor past the last visible row selected files you couldn't see. (#45)

Thanks to @julianduque for reporting #45 and #46.