Preview youR Elements Very professionally (prev)

This is a very simple script made for the kitty terminal emulator that allows you to obtain a preview for certain file types directly inside the terminal

Usage

To preview the contents of a directory

For the contents of a directory, simply write:

$ prev <path_to_dir>   

If no path is provided, it will show the contents of your current directory

To preview files

For any supported file (images, pdfs, text files etc), write:

$ prev <path_to_file>

Images that are being previewed will show extra information, such as file name, creation date, size etc.

Additional arguments

There are some arguments that can be passed without any path, such as:

• --clear-images or -ci: This will erase from the window any images that have been previously rendered
• --help or -h: This will show a summary of the script's usage

For usage with text files, there are some extra arguments that can be passed along with the path:

• --see-from=<pos> or -p=<pos>: Determines from which line position will the text file be read. Default is 1.
• --show-lines=<line_amount> or -l=<line_amount>: Determines the amount of lines that will be displayed from a given line onwards. Any negative value will mean that the file will be output entirely. Default is -1.

Currently supported file types:

Image file types

Because prev uses a terminal utility called imageMagick, it theoretically supports the same file types, even though all of them haven't been tested yet

Text file types

When prev is not used with an image, pdf or other specific file types, it will assume that it is dealing with a text file and prints its contents using the cat command, and therefore it is able to read almost any text file it encounters

PDFs and other specific file types

Even though the aim of this program is to be able to quickly preview most files that one would usually encounter inside the terminal, due to limitations and ease of use, other file types such as PDFs or videos (not implemented yet), are opened in an external file viewer

For Ubuntu, this means that PDF files are opened using the evince tool, if your system doesn't have it, the pdf preview won't work

Prerequisites

Having python installed in your machine

For Ubuntu users, write the following command in the Gnome terminal:

$ sudo apt install python3

This script has been tested using python version 3.10.12, but there shouldn't be any problem if using a different version

Installing the kitty terminal emulator

The following link is the github repo for the kitty terminal emulator:
https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty
Inside this repo are the instructions for installing it

If you are using Ubuntu, you can simply write the following command in the Gnome terminal:

$ sudo apt install kitty

Installing imagemagick utility

This utility is used for image previewing and can be easily installed using:

$ sudo apt install imagemagick

Installation

To be able to use the prev tool, download both prev.py and imgTypes.txt and place them anywhere you want, given that they are both be in the same folder.

Optional (but recommended) extras

Creating an alias for it

This will save you from having to write the full command to execute this script every time you want to use it ($ python3 /path/prev.py <args>)

1. To create an alias go to your shell config file (.bashrc if you haven't changed your shell, or .<shell_name>rc if you have)

Shell config files are usually found inside the /home/<user>/ folder

2. Then go to the end of the file and write:
   • alias prev='python3 /path_to_script/prev.py'
3. Now you can just type $ prev in your terminal and it should work fine.

lsDeluxe utility

This is a utility that will allow you to use the lsd command in order to decorate your terminal and add some icons to the otherwise boring ls command
On Ubuntu, you can use:

$ sudo snap install lsd --devmode

The --devmode option is not required but it is the only way to be able to use the command inside hidden folders

Installing a nerdfont icons compatible font for kitty

The nerdfont icons pack is a series of text-based icons that are used in some parts of the prev script, and are also a requirement for the lsDeluxe utility