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Álvaro Ramírez

05 October 2019 Show/hide Emacs dired details in style

Emacs dired is a powerful directory browser/editor. By default, it shows lots of handy file and directory details.

dired.png

I typically prefer hiding file and directory details until I need them. The built-in dired-hide-details-mode makes this easy with the "(" key toggle. Coupled with Steve Purcell's diredfl (for coloring), it strikes a great user experience.

diredfl.gif

With a short snippet, you can also show/hide dired details in style:

(use-package dired
  :hook (dired-mode . dired-hide-details-mode)
  :config
  ;; Colourful columns.
  (use-package diredfl
    :ensure t
    :config
    (diredfl-global-mode 1)))

UPDATE: Thanks to Daniel Martín, who pointed me to dired-git-info. This package adds git logs to dired file and directory details.

dired-git-info.gif

Binding dired-git-info-mode to ")" is a nice complement to dired-hide-details-mode's "(" binding.

(use-package dired-git-info
    :ensure t
    :bind (:map dired-mode-map
                (")" . dired-git-info-mode)))