sl sl takes the most common use of Unix ls, to display the files in a directory compactly in multiple columns, and makes it substantially more useful. sl groups files by purpose so you can mentally organize many files quickly; for instance, it collects HTML and PHP files together, as opposed to leaving them mixed up with supporting images, CSS, and JavaScript. sl points out interesting files, which include those that have been recently modified, read relatively recently, are relatively large, have warnings, or need to be checked in to or out of version control. sl is also aesthetically pleasing due to attention to layout and filtering as well as limiting color and text annotations to salient information. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Screen Shots ls vs sl on WWW site: sl on a software development directory: sl on a collection (photos, audio, video, even apps): On this directory of music, which is managed by iTunes, we see all the albums by an artist. sl also shows /number of songs in each album, the relatively recent CD rips (which not coincidentally correspond to the latest two albums), which we ripped about 2 months ago (58 days) and 7 months ago (228 days). The summary line at bottom shows the total number of CDs and the (total number) of songs. Note that the directories were determined to hold audio material, and sorting works as it should with inital "The"s ignored. This display is useful for other kinds of hierarchy. Features * sort * group by purpose to organize and make understandable so many files (like Apple II catalog arrangers, but automatically) For subdirectories, look at the files they contain and if warranted reclassify directory into image, audio, or video group. * normalize: fold case for most groups (rather than all files starting with an uppercase letter followed by all lowercase files), ignore initial the/an/a, treat various word separators (space . _ -) as equivalent * numbers ordered properly (8.jpg before 10.jpg — no need for leading 0s just for sorting) * mark * important (highlight in inverse colors) * autosearch for keywords, such as "urgent" or "password" * quickly see what's new by looking at recently changed files (think red hot) or recent relative to other files in that directory (think once hot now still glowing orange) * → files read relatively recently. The file you worked with more recently than the others is often the one you're looking for now. * large files relative to other files in that directory (indent by a space — easy to pick out against column edge) e.g., largest fonts may have CJK or extensive Unicode, largest among source code may be site of heavy lifting, in directory of directories call out ones with most files * classification by trailing character (like ls -F): directory/, link->, executable*, special_ * colorize directory, executable*, special (like ls -G, though more subtle since have groupings and warnings) * info * spot info: brief, particularly relevant additional information on a highly limited number of files. Since few files are targeted, this is fast and avoids visual clutter. Standard spot info details the recently read (-age), recently changed (