pls is a prettier ls for the pros.

The "p" stands for

• pretty (the output from pls surely looks better)
• programmer (pls is geared towards developers)
• professional (pls can be extensively tweaked by the pros)
• Python (pls is written in Python!)

Just pick whichever helps you remember the command name.

It works in a manner similar to ls, in that it lists directories and files in a given directory, but it adds many more developer-friendly features.

Note that pls is not a replacement for ls. ls is a tried, tested and trusted command with lots of features. pls, on the other hand, is a simple tool for people who just want to see the contents of their directories.

Documentation

We have some very beautiful documentation over on our GitHub pages site. These docs are built from the docs branch in the same repository, so contributions to the docs are most welcome.

The docs contain information on almost everything, including but not limited to the following:

• installation, updates and usage
• features and CLI options
• reference
• contribution

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🚧 Everything below this line will eventually be transferred to the documentation.

Features

pls provides many features over ls command. pls can:

• show Nerd Font icons or emoji next to files and directories making it easier to read the output
• colour output to elevate important files or dim unimportant ones
• use a more nuanced approach to hidden files than plainly hiding files with a leading dot .
• group directories and shows them all before files
• ignore leading dots . and normalise case when sorting files
• align files names by first character
• show technical two-letter Git status for files and directories
• cascade formatting rule specs by based on specificity levels
• read .pls.yml files from the directory to augment its configuration
• show more details like permissions, owner and size in columns
• link files and hide derived files behind the main ones

The icon, color and most behaviour in the application can be configured using plain-text YAML files for the pros who prefer to tweak their tools.

Upcoming features

In the future pls will be able to

• generate visibility rules by parsing .gitignore
• add MIME type as another method for matching files to specs
• use complete path based matching for files
• generate tree-like output for subdirectories

If you want to help implement any of these features, feel free to submit a PR. pls is free and open-source software.

Comparison with similar tools

There are a lot of ls replacements. Here are some of the most popular ones.

• exa
• lsd
• colorls
• ls-go

pls aims to stand out because of some very specific choices.

• Does not intend to replace ls. pls, as a command, is just as easy to type.
• Targets a more tech-savvy audience in its features.
• Intelligently maps file type. Just comparing the file extension would be too generic.
• Meticulously chosen iconography for the appreciating eyes.
• Highly customisable at a project level using a simple .pls.yml file.
• Built in a friendly language, Python. This makes it easy to fork and change it yourself.