Everyday work
Viewing and editing
F3 opens the Lister, PaneShift's version of Total Commander's viewer. Quick Look and the Quick View panel use the Mac's previews for everything else.
The Lister (F3)§
Put the cursor on a file and press F3 or ⌘3. Each file opens in its own window, so you can keep several open. Markdown files (.md) open rendered; other text files open as text.
Modes§
| Key | Mode |
|---|---|
| 1 | Text, decoded with the chosen encoding. |
| 3 | Hex: offset, bytes and characters. Works for files of any size, because rows are read from disk as you scroll. |
| 4 | Image. |
| 5 | Rendered Markdown. |
| W | Wrap long lines on or off. |
| Esc | Close the Lister. |
The same choices are in the Lister's toolbar.
Encodings§
The Lister detects the encoding: a byte-order mark first, then valid UTF-8, then Windows-1250, the usual “ANSI” encoding of Central European text files from Windows. Choose another one from the toolbar:
UTF-8 · UTF-16 LE · UTF-16 BE · Windows-1250 (Central European) · Windows-1252 (Western) · ISO 8859-2 · Mac Roman
Text is decoded up to 32 MB. Larger files show their beginning as text; the hex view shows all of them.
Finding text§
- In text and Markdown modes, ⌘F opens the find bar.
- In hex mode, ⌘F searches for text in the chosen encoding, or for bytes typed in hex:
4F 2A,4f2aor0x4f 0x2a. - ⌘G finds the next match and ⇧⌘G the previous one.
Summaries§
On a Mac with Apple Intelligence, Summarize in the Lister's toolbar writes a short summary of the text with the on-device model. The text never leaves your Mac.
Quick Look§
⌘Y opens the system Quick Look window for the item under the cursor, as in the Finder. While it is open, the arrow keys move the panel's cursor and Quick Look follows.
Quick View§
⌃Q turns the other panel into a preview of the item under the cursor in the active panel: images, PDFs, videos, documents, text and anything else Quick Look understands. Move the cursor and the preview follows. Press ⌃Q again to get the panel back. ⌘1 or ⌘2 also bring it back, as in Total Commander.
Editing files§
F4 or ⌘4 opens the marked files, or the file under the cursor, in your default text editor. That is the app macOS uses for plain text files, TextEdit unless you changed it. To make another editor the default, select a .txt file in the Finder, choose File › Get Info, pick the app under “Open with” and click Change All.
Compare by Content§
⌥⌘D compares two files side by side. It uses the two marked files in the active panel, or the files under the cursor in the left and right panels.
- Text files show both versions with the different lines colored. N and P jump to the next and previous difference.
- Ignore case and Ignore whitespace hide differences you don't care about.
- Binary files, and text files over 16 MB, are compared byte by byte; the window shows the first differing byte.
- Esc closes the window.