Jump around to folders by frecency

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novoid
Posts: 2
Joined: 21.12.2017, 18:11

Jump around to folders by frecency

#1 Post by novoid » 21.12.2017, 18:30

Hi!

On non-Windows systems I prefer to use the zsh for maintaining my file system. On Windows, I choose FreeCommander. However, there is one feature of my zsh which I would love to see in FreeCommander as well: z from https://github.com/rupa/z (there are a couple of alternative tools with a similar featureset)

Whenever I type "z foobar" in the command prompt my zsh teleports me to the folder related to the keyword "foobar". This is either (part of) the folder name ("/a/folder/like/foobar", "/a/folder/like/foobarbaz", "/a/folder/like/bazfoobar") or even a parent folder ("/example/foobar/of_a/frequently_used/folder/").

With "z" I gave up maintaining folder "bookmarks" in my shell. It just solved the "jump to a given folder" totally and is self-maintained. FreeCommander can do this as well. I want to replace my very long list of folder favorites with it.
Btw, "frecency" is not a typo. It's a combination of 'recent' and 'frequency'.

I'd guess, the algorithm would be:

Constantly log the current working folder in the tabs.

Provide a keyboard shortcut + icon + menu entry for "jump to …" (in addition or as an alternative to the current Folder/Go to folder… feature):
- ask for a simple input string (or optional multiple strings?)
- parse the input string on-the-fly during input
- lookup the collected stored working folders, their number of visits and their recent visits
- calculate an ordered list of target folders according to frecency
- show the five(?) topmost items of that list (including full path!)
- provide the possibility to quickly select the topmost item (i.e., jumping to this entry - compare to "I feel lucky" by pressing Return) and a possibility to select a different (not topmost) item of the list easily (i.e., by arrow keys + Return)
- jump to the selected target folder
- make your users happy 8)

This would be a real killer-feature for power-users. If I had one wish for Christmas, this would be on top of it ;-)

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Forez
Posts: 1312
Joined: 30.01.2016, 12:05
Location: In front of a PC monitor

Re: Jump around to folders by frecency

#2 Post by Forez » 02.01.2018, 21:04

novoid wrote: 21.12.2017, 18:30
[...]
Btw, "frecency" is not a typo. It's a combination of 'recent' and 'frequency'.
[...]
That portmanteau explanation should have been placed at the very beginning of your post

hagai
Posts: 1
Joined: 12.01.2018, 16:20

Re: Jump around to folders by frecency

#3 Post by hagai » 15.01.2018, 20:28

+1

fman (multi-platform file manager) have something similar, called "GoTo on Steroids"

novoid
Posts: 2
Joined: 21.12.2017, 18:11

Re: Jump around to folders by frecency

#4 Post by novoid » 06.09.2023, 18:41

hagai wrote: 15.01.2018, 20:28 fman (multi-platform file manager) have something similar, called "GoTo on Steroids"
Absolutely. I actually learned about that method from fman.

Then I discovered https://github.com/rupa/z which was replaced by https://github.com/agkozak/zsh-z also within my NixOS config: https://github.com/novoid/nixos-config/ ... -tools.nix

I also created a similar workflow for GNU Emacs dired (the oldest file browser there is): https://github.com/novoid/dot-emacs/blo ... config.org (search for "frecency").

For Windows-UI-Users, FreeCommander would get a really great benefit by implementing that feature IMHO.

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