Leaves: New Text-UI Tool for Disk Usage Visualization

Overview of Leaves

Leaves is a text-mode disk usage visualization tool that showcases files and directories using nested rectangles. The area occupied by each rectangle corresponds to the size of the file or directory it represents, thereby providing a visual representation of disk usage similar to graphical tools but optimized for text environments.

Installation Requirements

To install Leaves, users need a Rust toolchain. The standard installation can be performed using the rustup script. It may be necessary to install curl and other basic build tools depending on the system. Alternatively, the Nix package manager can be used to facilitate a declarative build process.

Building and Running Leaves

Users can build Leaves from source using the cargo build tool, or if they prefer, they can run it directly without installation using the cargo run command. The application can scan specified directories, defaulting to the current directory if none is given.

Functionality and Options

By default, Leaves ignores hidden directories and files matching patterns in .gitignore or .ignore files. Users can customize their scans using options that control which files to include or exclude. Further command-line options are available to refine the selection of directories and files scanned.