Very convenient combination of CLI image viewer Überzug and Ranger

Introduction

Ranger, a console file manager that can be operated with Vim-like key bindings, has a fast live preview, as well as text content, images and settings. You can also check thumbnails of PDF documents and videos on a crisp terminal.

In order to realize image display with the viewer, you can use the image display mechanism of w3m w3mimgdisplay and iTerm2 of Mac, but recently I learned that it also supports a tool called Überzug, so this tool itself and Ranger I would like to introduce how to combine with.

About Überzug

Überzug is a command line utility that allows you to draw images on the terminal using child windows, and according to the readme, it has the following features.

--There are no race conditions because a new window is created to display the image. --The Expose event is processed, so the image is redrawn when you switch workspaces. --Supported for use on tmux.

And so on. Let's use it immediately.

Installation

It is a Python tool and is installed with pip, but it depends on X11 and Xext, so it seems that it can only be used on an OS running on the X Window System. I tried it on ʻUbuntu 20.04 LTS`. I could install it on WSL2 & x410 (X server for WSL), but it did not work properly due to an error.

Follow the steps below to install the required libraries and Überzug.

~% sudo apt-get install python3 python3-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev python3-distutil
~% curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
~% sudo python3 get-pip.py
~% sudo pip3 install ueberzug

how to use

If you can install it successfully, prepare the following script as a trial and use it from the shell. It renders using the X feature, so you probably don't care what kind of terminal emulator you have.

show.sh


#!/bin/bash
[ -z "$5" ] && echo "Usage: $0 <image> <x> <y> <max height> <max width>" && exit

source "`ueberzug library`"

ImageLayer 0< <(
    ImageLayer::add [identifier]="example0" [x]="$2" [y]="$3" [max_width]="$5" [max_height]="$4" [path]="$1"
    read
)

If you do chmod + x show.sh and hit it like ./show.sh images / AX141105107519_TP_V4.jpg 50 10 20 20, img.png You can display an image in any size anywhere on the terminal like this. Hit [Enter] again to exit.

There seem to be various other options, so please refer to Github for details.

Try using from Ranger

Let's check the template of $ HOME / .config / ranger / rc.conf after ranger --copy-config = all in Ranger 1.9.3.

$HOME/.config/ranger/rc.conf


# * ueberzug:
#   Preview images in full color with the external command "ueberzug".
#   Images are shown by using a child window.
#   Only for users who run X11 in GNU/Linux.

Since there is a comment, set set preview_images_method as follows.

set preview_images_method ueberzug

This is OK.

You can preview "image / PDF / video thumbnails" at explosive speed like this. Peek 2020-07-16 10-18.gif

It seems that there is no problem even if you display in each pane divided by tmux or switch windows. The image will not disappear or remain. Peek 2020-07-16 10-28.gif

I was able to display images in the same way with Ranger launched in Vim's terminal mode, so I think that I haven't tried it with a plug-in that works with Ranger, but I think it can be used.

in conclusion

Currently, the operating systems that can be used are limited, but if you are a regular user of Linux Desktop, you can use it very conveniently. Personally, I would like to be able to use it with a combination of Windows 10 (WSL2) and X server.

Then, please give it a try!

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