LX: A nicer way to list your files

A modern alternative to ls with more readable formatting, colours, icons, and customizable output.

Features

• 🎨 Colorized output with file type icons
• 📊 Multiple display modes: short (default) and long (-l)
• 👻 Hidden files support: use -a to show all files
• ⚙️ Configurable: customize colors, spacing, and display options
• 📏 Smart alignment: properly handles unicode characters and icons

Requirements

• Rust (>= 1.56.1) and Cargo
• Either a nerd font or a terminal like Ghostty which has nerd font icons pre-installed.

Installation

The easiest way to install lx is using Cargo:

cargo install lx-cli

This will install the lx binary to ~/.cargo/bin/, which is typically already in your PATH.

Alternatively, you can build it from source:

git clone https://github.com/JackDerksen/lx-cli
cd lx-cli
cargo build --release
cp target/release/lx ~/.local/bin/

For local development, use the provided install script to automatically build and install:

./install.sh

This script will build the project and copy the binary to ~/.local/bin/.

Make sure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Add this to your shell configuration file (.bashrc, .zshrc, etc.) to make it permanent.

Quick Start

After installation, simply run:

lx

Usage

lx is used pretty much just like regular old ls. There are only a couple of flags at the moment, but more are on the way!

# List files in current directory
lx

# List files in long format
lx -l

# Show hidden files
lx -a

# Combine flags
lx -la

# List files in a specific directory
lx /path/to/directory

Configuration

lx can be customized using a configuration file at ~/.config/lx/config.

See config.example for all available options.

Example Configuration

(this is different from default)

[colors]
directory = "blue"
executable = "red"
regular = "white"

[display]
column_spacing = 3
max_rows = 7

Available Colors

• black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white
• bright_black, bright_red, bright_green, bright_yellow, bright_blue, bright_magenta, bright_cyan, bright_white

Configuration Options

[colors]

• directory: Color for directory names (default: blue)
• executable: Color for executable files (default: green)
• regular: Color for regular files (default: white)

[icons]

• directory: Custom icon for directories (default: nerd font folder icon)
• executable: Custom icon for executables (default: nerd font gear icon)
• regular: Custom icon for regular files (default: nerd font file icon)

Icons can be any string - single characters, multiple characters, emoji, ASCII, or anything else:

[icons]
# Simple ASCII
directory = "/"
executable = "*"
regular = "-"

# Multi-character
directory = "[d]"
executable = "[x]"
regular = "[f]"

# Or use emoji
directory = "📁"
executable = "⚙️"
regular = "📄"

[icons.colors]

• directory: Color for directory icons (default: blue)
• executable: Color for executable icons (default: green)
• regular: Color for regular file icons (default: white)

You can customize icon colors separately from filename colors:

[icons.colors]
directory = "bright_blue"
executable = "bright_green"
regular = "bright_white"

Note: If file icons don't render correctly in your terminal, either install a nerd font (https://www.nerdfonts.com) or configure custom icons as shown above.

[display]

• column_spacing: Number of spaces between columns (default: 2)
• max_rows: Maximum number of rows before wrapping to next column in short format. Set to 0 for no limit (default: 0)
  • When set, each file type (directories, executables, regular files) will wrap into multiple columns after reaching the max row count
  • For example, with max_rows = 5 and 12 directories, they will be displayed in 3 columns with 5 rows each
  • File type separation is maintained - directories, executables, and files are kept in their own sections
  • Only applies to short format (default view), not long format (-l)