feat: Order of the columns

[PThorpe92]

#1237 from exa

A resource to define the order of the columns. If I want for example:

User, Group, Octal, Permission, Date Modified, Size, Icon, Name

would be beyond the perfection, it is a lot better than lsd and other already

I am re-posting this here because I think that is a good feature request.

I am going to check it out and see what it would take to implement, but I have a feeling it will be much more complicated than it sounds.

[PThorpe92]

This does indeed look tricky. Not using clap for arg parsing is something to get used to for sure. You think this belongs in the command line arguments at all?

Individually specifying the order of the columns sounds like an ENV_VAR "gi=42;2" type deal, where

EZA_COLUMN_ORD="t;u;p;g;n" (Time, user, permissions, git, name)

Thoughts? Or is this maybe something to revisit in #139 ? When users can be more expressive

[cafkafk]

Thoughts? Or is this maybe something to revisit in #139 ? When users can be more expressive

The feature could be really cool, EZA_COLUMN_ORD="t;u;p;g;n" makes sense to me, although it could also perhaps allow full names as well EZA_COLUMN_ORD="time;user;permissions;git;name" and such?

Not using clap for arg parsing is something to get used to for sure.

Yeop...

[PThorpe92]

I'm going to go the ENV route and see if I can put something together. Can you assign this to me?

although it could also perhaps allow full names as well EZA_COLUMN_ORD="time;user;permissions;git;name" and such?

Agreed that looks much better

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 30 days with no activity.

[github-actions]

This issue was closed because it has been inactive for 14 days since being marked as stale.

[bew]

14 days of inactivity is pretty short, why even close?
Looks like it's only waiting for an implementation here, no rush imo

[PThorpe92]

I guess I should look at this again. I think I stopped after realizing there's no way to change the order of the file/dir names, but there still might be some use for this feature

[ferki]

Just to drop one more feedback point: currently in the -l output the permission and ownership info is separated by the size info – while it feels like the permission and ownership info are much more closely related to each other, than size related to either one of them.

To be fair, it's the same with ls -l output too, but with hard-link counts instead of size (which I find slightly less distracting, though).

Therefore, the idea of configurable output column order sounds awesome! 👍

Perhaps it's worth considering to use full words for the name of environment variable: EZA_COLUMN_ORDER instead of EZA_COLUMN_ORD

[John-Dennehy]

Would love to see this implemented. For some reason the current order really bugs me way more than it should.

[kirpalricky]

+1

[IgnacioJPickering]

+1, This would be very handy to have. For example, the file size column is in a different place than in ls, I understand some people may prefer that default and that's fine, but I would prefer for it to be in the traditional place.

[lpanebr]

I would love if it could be configured by command line flags like in the --help mockup below:

❯ eza --help
Usage:
  eza [options] [files...]
...

LONG VIEW OPTIONS
  -b, --binary               list file sizes with binary prefixes
  -B, --bytes                list file sizes in bytes, without any prefixes
  -C, --columns-order CORD   comma separated list to set the columns order 
                             (regardless of their inclusion/exclusion by other flags)
...
  Valid CORD fields:         blocksize, context, filesize, flags, 
                             git, git-repos, group, inode, links, 
                             mounts, permissions, time, user.
...

[jtackaberry]

I've been evaluating lsd vs eza as an ls replacement and, FWIW, while I prefer eza overall, this one ended up being a deal breaker. It's not even just decades of expecting something to be in a certain place, but that, at least to me, file size is among the most important attributes of a file apart from its name, so the degree of left/right scanning was a surprising UX obstacle.

[theacodes]

I ran into this today as well. Is this planned at all? Would a contribution implementing this be considered?

[cafkafk]

I ran into this today as well. Is this planned at all? Would a contribution implementing this be considered?

I think it would be welcome, but I'd personally be a bit opinionated on implementation, if someone does try to implement it I'd recommend joining the eza matrix room.