Open several files in tabs

Open several files at once, each in a tab of its own, move between the tabs, and open and close tabs from inside aless.

Every file named on the command line opens in a tab of its own. A file you open from inside aless gets a tab of its own too. When more than one tab is open, a strip above the tree names the tabs, so you can see which file each tab holds. The examples on this page open books.json and bookshelf-openapi.yaml.

Open files in tabs #

Name the files on the command line. The files can be in any mix of formats, as in this command:

aless books.json bookshelf-openapi.yaml

 1:books.json*   2:bookshelf-openapi.yaml*
▼ [
  ▽ {
      title: "A Book of Examples"
      author: "A. N. Author"
      year: 1999
    ▽ tags: [
        "examples"
        "reference"
  ▽ {
      title: "Shelves and How to Fill Them"
 books.json .                                             json · watching · 1:1 

Each entry in the strip is a tab's number and its file's name. aless draws the active tab bright. A mark after the name shows the tab's state: * for a tab watching its file, ! for a tab whose file doesn't parse, and ✗ for a tab whose file has gone. Standard input piped into aless opens in a tab named (stdin).

Move between tabs #

Tab goes to the next tab, and Shift+Tab goes to the previous one. Both keys wrap round at the ends of the strip, so Tab on the last tab goes to the first.

:tab N goes to tab N, where N is the tab's number in the strip. :tabnext and :tabprev do what Tab and Shift+Tab do. :tabfirst and :tablast go to the first tab and the last.

Each tab keeps its own focus, folds, mode, and search, so a tab you come back to is as you left it.

Open files and directories from inside aless #

:open PATH opens the file at PATH in a new tab. aless reads the file as its extension says. With a format's name after the path, :open PATH FORMAT reads the file as that format instead. :e is the same command as :open.

When PATH is a directory, :open opens the directory in the explorer. In the explorer, Enter on a file opens that file in a new tab. :explore DIR opens the directory at DIR in the explorer too.

Close tabs and quit #

q, :q, or :close closes the active tab. Closing the last tab quits aless. :qa, :quit, and :exit quit however many tabs are open, so you don't have to close the tabs one by one. Ctrl+C quits the same way.

For more information, see these pages:

• Choose the format aless reads. Covers reading a tab again as another format.
• Save a document as JSON. Covers writing a tab's document to a file.
• Keys. Lists every tab key and command.