File explorer

The file explorer is not a tree widget you click through. It is a live, editable buffer of your workspace, and editing that buffer is how you manage files. Rename a line and the file is renamed. Delete a line and the file is gone. Re-indent a block and those files move into another directory. You make all the changes you want as ordinary text edits, then save once and confirm. It is the fastest way to do bulk file surgery in Rune, and once it clicks you will not want to manage files any other way.

Opening it

The explorer is a pre-minimized floating window docked on the left. Open it, focus it, and tuck it away again with a single binding:

<shift-meta-e>

The first press un-minimizes the window and focuses it. Press it again while the explorer is focused and it minimizes back out of the way. The binding runs the fexplorer command, so you can remap it like any other (see layout management).

Rune remembers the window you came from. When you open a file from the explorer, it lands in that window, not on top of the explorer.

In an empty workspace, or one where everything is ignored, the explorer opens as an empty buffer rather than a tree. That is the expected state: type the first file or directory name into it and save to create it. editor.file_explorer.min_width sets how wide that empty split is.

Moving around

The explorer renders the workspace as an indented tree inside a normal editor buffer, so every editor motion you already know works here: hjkl or the arrow keys, search, jumps, the lot.

Key	On a file	On a directory
<enter>	Opens the file in your last window	Expands or collapses the directory in place

Expanding a directory reads its contents lazily and nests them under the line, so you stay in one buffer instead of navigating away. There is no separate "go up" command: the whole tree is right there, and you fold directories closed when you want them out of sight.

<enter> acts on the tree until you enter edit mode with <shift-esc>. After that it inserts a newline like anywhere else, which is how you split a row into a new entry.

Editing is how you manage files

Here is the part that makes the explorer special. The buffer is the source of truth, and Rune tracks the identity of every row, so it can tell the difference between renaming a file and deleting one. That means you can reshape your whole workspace with plain text edits:

• Rename a file or directory by editing its line.
• Delete a file by deleting its line (dd in modal mode).
• Create a file by typing a new line where you want it.
• Create a directory by adding a line for it and nesting children underneath.
• Move a file into another directory by changing its indentation. Indent a line one level deeper to push it into the directory above it; outdent it to move it back toward the parent.
• Copy a file by duplicating its line (yank and paste it elsewhere).

The explorer opens read-only, so press <shift-esc> to enter edit mode before any of this takes. See Read-only mode.

When you yank a row, you also yank the icon glyph rendered in front of the name. Paste the name only, or fix the pasted line up so it reads like the rest of the tree. Rune refuses to write a name containing an icon glyph, and tells you which line is at fault.

None of this touches the disk while you type. You can stage as many changes as you like, across as many directories as you like, and review the whole batch before anything happens. This is what makes the explorer a power tool for bulk work: rename a dozen files, reorganize a directory tree, and fan out a new folder structure, all as one edit.

Save, then confirm

When you are happy with the buffer, save it the way you save any file:

write

(<esc>:w<enter> in modal mode, or your usual save binding.) Saving does not blindly apply your edits. Rune first diffs the buffer against what is on disk, then shows you exactly what it is about to do and asks for a yes/no confirmation:

Apply the following changes?

• RENAME old-name -> new-name
• MOVE src/util.go -> internal/util.go
• DELETE scratch.txt
• CREATE notes/todo.md
• MKDIR notes

Press y to apply every change in one go, or n to back out and keep your pending edits. If two lines would resolve to the same path, Rune refuses the whole batch and tells you which path conflicts, so you never half-apply a rename.

This save-and-confirm step is your safety net. You get the speed of bulk text editing with a final, reviewable summary before a single file moves.

What it hides

The explorer shows the same set of files the rest of Rune considers worth seeing. It honors your workspace .gitignore and skips the usual noise like .git/ and editor swap files, so the tree stays focused on the files you actually work with. File and directory icons match the icon set the rest of the editor uses.

Read-only mode

The explorer starts read-only, so a stray keystroke in a tree you were only browsing can never rename a file. Press <shift-esc> to enter edit mode for the rest of the visit; close the explorer and it goes back to read-only.

The bottom row of the explorer always names the next step: the key that enters edit mode while it is read-only, and the key bound to write once it is not. Rebind write and the hint follows; bind nothing to it and the row disappears.

Read-only is a config setting, so the modal preset can opt in and the other presets can opt out. The key that leaves it, the hint row and its color, and the width the split falls back to on an empty tree are configurable too:

config.yaml

editor:
  file_explorer:
    read_only: true
    edit_key: "<shift-esc>"
    min_width: 24
    hint: true
    hint_attr: {fg: gray}

config.star

"editor": {
    "file_explorer": {
        "read_only": True,
        "edit_key":  "<shift-esc>",
        "min_width": 24,
        "hint":      True,
        "hint_attr": attr(fg = "gray"),
    },
},

Browsing, expanding, collapsing and opening files all keep working. Outside edit mode the buffer refuses every keystroke that would change it and saving does nothing, so the explorer cannot modify your workspace until you ask it to.

Throwaway edits

Closing the explorer with the toggle while you have unsaved edits discards them. Nothing is applied until you save and confirm, so if you experiment in the buffer and change your mind, just toggle it shut and start fresh next time.