pointer.1

.TH POINTER 1 "April 2026" "pointer" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
pointer \- terminal file manager
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B pointer
[\fB\-\-fresh\fR]
[\fB\-\-pick=\fIFILE\fR]
[\fIDIR\fR]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pointer
is a two-pane terminal file manager with preview, image display, archive
browsing, SSH/SFTP, tabs, bookmarks, plugins, and a comprehensive undo stack.
Built on Crust. Feature clone of RTFM.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BI \-\-pick= FILE
File picker mode. On quit, writes the tagged items (one per line) to
.IR FILE .
Used by external tools (such as Kastrup's attach-file flow) to let the user
choose paths interactively.
.TP
.B \-\-fresh
Don't restore cursor positions from previous sessions, and don't save
positions for this session. Config option
.B remember_positions
controls the default behavior.
.TP
.I DIR
Start in \fIDIR\fR instead of the current directory.
.SH KEY BINDINGS
Press
.B ?
inside the application for the complete reference. Common keys:
.TP
.B j / k, UP / DOWN
Move selection.
.TP
.B h / l, LEFT / RIGHT
Parent / enter directory.
.TP
.B SPACE, t
Tag item. Tagged items are the target of bulk operations.
.TP
.B d
Delete (moves to trash if trash is enabled, otherwise permanent).
.TP
.B c
Rename.
.TP
.B r
Open recent files / directories picker.
.TP
.B C
Configuration menu (inside, press
.B r
to toggle position memory).
.TP
.B Archives
Press ENTER or RIGHT on a zip/tar/gz/bz2/xz/rar/7z file to browse it as a virtual
directory. Inside an archive:
.B d
deletes tagged/selected entries,
.B D
extracts them to the dir where the archive was entered, and
.B p
adds files (that were tagged before entering the archive) into the current
virtual directory. LEFT at the archive root exits back to the filesystem.
.TP
.B q
Quit and save state.
.TP
.B Q
Quit without saving state.
.SH PREVIEW
.B pointer
previews text with syntax highlighting (20+ languages), Markdown, LaTeX,
plain text with URL/email/TODO detection, images via kitty/sixel protocols,
archives as virtual directories, PDF, LibreOffice / MS Office documents,
audio/video metadata, and JSON/XML.
.SH FILES
.TP
.I ~/.pointer/conf.json
User configuration (auto-created on first run). Option
.B remember_positions
(bool, default true) controls persistent cursor positions.
.TP
.I ~/.pointer/state.json
Persistent state: marks, history, recent files, cursor positions per
directory.
.TP
.I ~/.pointer/trash/
Trash directory (when trash is enabled).
.TP
.I ~/.pointer/plugins/
Plugin manifests. Each plugin is a JSON file bound to a key.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B EDITOR
Editor used by the script evaluator and file-open actions.
.TP
.B LS_COLORS
Consulted for file color coding (falls back to a built-in palette).
.SH AUTHOR
Geir Isene <g@isene.com>
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR rush (1),
.BR kastrup (1),
.BR scroll (1),
.BR tock (1)
.PP
Project home: https://github.com/isene/pointer