15 Days in Dired
As I was exploring Spacemacs, I challenged myself to do all file management with Dired for 15 days. I was able to get most of the stuff done quite easily even with my limited knowledge of Spacemacs. And the experience only got better as I kept on using it. Here's what I liked the most.
navigation is much better
Know where you want to go? Just press Ctrl + S and start typing... then press Enter.
terminals open in the same directory
When you open a terminal from a Dired buffer, it opens in the same directory.
split screen is phenomenal
Press o instead of Enter to open a folder in a separate window. When you try to copy files while having split windows open, Spacemacs automatically suggests the path opened in the other split.
editing dired buffers
Press C-x C-q to enter Wdired mode which facilitates editing directory listings as text buffers. You can move, rename, change perms for your files. Save your changes with C-c C-c.
one-off commands are easier
You can run an external command on files using the ! and & keys.
xdg-open is your friend
You'd expect that double-clicking on a file will open it in the "default application". This can be achieved with xdg-open. Because xdg-open is hard to type, I symlinked it to xoxo.
$ sudo ln -sT /usr/bin/xdg-open /usr/bin/xoxotldr;
✨ It works. It's awesome. ✨
Dired is a reasonable alternative to an external or graphical file manager. Already knowing a fair bit of Emacs, I found it very easy to work with Dired.
This was originally published in 2021
Since then, I've spent a lot more than 15 days using Dired and Spacemacs