Help Dialog (F1 Key)

XeFM includes a scrollable help dialog listing the key bindings for whatever is on screen. Press F1 in the file list to open the one described here. The viewers (text, image, file diff, directory diff) answer F1 as well, each with its own key list rather than this dialog.

Usage

• F1 — open the help dialog
• ↑/↓ — scroll line by line (the mouse wheel scrolls too)
• Page Up/Down — scroll by page
• Home/End — jump to top/bottom
• Escape or Enter — close (clicking outside the dialog closes it too)

Content

The help is generated from your current key bindings, so it always reflects your configuration, including any customizations. That is also why the list below names what each section covers instead of quoting keys — the dialog itself is the place to read which key does what on your setup. The sections, in order:

• Navigation — moving the cursor, opening an item, going to the parent or the root, switching panes, and the jump dialogs (favorites, history, drives, a typed path, the other pane’s directory)
• Selection — marking items one at a time or in bulk, clearing the marks, stepping between marked items, and comparing against the other pane
• File Operations — create, rename, copy, move and delete, archive and extract, file details, editing, copying names or paths to the clipboard, and handing the selection to the OS, an external program, or a shell
• Search — incremental search, the filename filter, and the recursive filename and content (grep) searches, plus the search dialog’s own options (case, pattern syntax, subfolders)
• Incremental Search (while the search bar is open) — the keys the search bar itself answers while it is open: stepping between matches, selecting matches, accepting, cancelling
• View — the text viewer, comparing two files, hidden files, the color theme, and sorting (the sort dialog and the quick sorts)
• Log Pane — scrolling the log, resizing it, and copying from it
• Other — the menu bar, editing and reloading your config, help, and quit
• Your Actions (config.py) — the actions your own config defines, listed with the descriptions you gave them. Absent unless your config defines at least one (see Customization)
• Archive Formats — which archive formats this copy of XeFM can browse, extract and create, and the libarchive it found. Built when XeFM starts rather than written down, because the list depends on what is installed (see Archives)

A few rows appear only where they work. The terminal build lists the in-window menu bar; the desktop builds leave it out, because there the menu bar is the operating system’s own.

An action your configuration leaves unbound shows an em dash instead of a key, followed by the menu that reaches it — several useful actions ship unbound on purpose, and the menu is how you run them until you bind one.

Usage tips are not here — they live in the separate Tip of the Day dialog (Help → Tip of the Day…), described in Tips.

Configuration

Help is bound to F1 by default. Rebind the help action in KEY_BINDINGS to use a different key:

KEY_BINDINGS = {
    'help': ['F1', 'H'],  # F1 or H shows help
    # ... other bindings
}

About dialog

Separate from the help dialog, the About dialog shows XeFM’s name, version number, and GitHub repository URL as a clickable link. Open it from the menu bar, under Help → About XeFM, on every platform.

Close it with the OK button, or by pressing Enter, Space or ESC. Under a color theme that carries a text effect (Sci-Fi) the text decodes into place as the box opens; under every other theme it simply appears.