View and edit

F3 opens the viewer, F4 the system editor.

What it reads

Text, Markdown, HTML, CSV tables, images, PDFs, Office documents, video and sound — and everything else in hexadecimal. The arrows move to the next file without closing it: that is what makes the difference between looking at a file and browsing a folder.

The built-in renderer is not an engine: it reads headings, lists, tables, links; it knows neither CSS, nor script, nor images. For a page that depends on them, the “browser” button hands it over to the system’s — already installed, and telling the truth. An Office document goes the same way to its program when it is installed.

JSON and XML are reformatted when the file is read in full: one tag or value per line, four spaces per level. A web.config or an API response often fits on a single line, which you used to follow with your finger. What cannot be parsed — a file truncated by the reading window, a .json that is not one — stays as it is: better the source than nothing. The file itself is never rewritten: it is formatting on screen.

Search in it

The viewer’s field searches the displayed file, counts the occurrences and moves from one to the next. In a PDF, it is the extracted text that is searched.

A file that changes before your eyes

A displayed text file rereads itself. Meneaufile checks it every two seconds: if it has changed, it rereads it without the reading position moving. Placed at the BOTTOM of the file, however, it follows what arrives — it is a log you watch flowing.

The limits

The viewer reads sixty-four mebibytes in one piece; beyond that it shows a window of the file, and two bounds lead to the start and the end.

Meneaufile manual, in English.