Nnn – a terminal file manager for programmers
A lot of good features in nnn. Unfortunately, for me, the huge deal breaker is the (sorry, but I have to say it) <i>terrible</i> choices for one of the most important hotkey-functionality combinations.<p>I am not talking about some rarely used keys&#x2F;functions, but the problem lies at the very core of the experience: the simple hjkl, vim-style navigation.<p>You see, as in vim, k&#x2F;j (&#x27;up&#x27;&#x2F;&#x27;down&#x27;) obviously move up&#x2F;down in the list of dirs&#x2F;files. h (&#x27;left&#x27;) moves up the directory hierarchy (&#x27;Parent dir&#x27; as nnn&#x27;s help aptly describes the function.) Of course, now l (&#x27;right&#x27;) moves down the directory hierarchy: IF you are sitting with the highlight on a DIRECTORY entry, obviously if moves down into that directory.<p>But here is the kicker: what if you have as your current highlight something OTHER than a directory, that is a FILE ?<p>It OPENS the file.
(The open operation is done through xdg-open, so whatever that is configured to recognize)
If xdg-open is not configured defensively, in the case when the file is executable it runs the program. 
Or if the file has some associated program, it is launched with the file as an argument. (this was happening even on my machine, and I have a relatively conservative xdg-open config)
At the minimum it launches an editor, opening the file in read&#x2F;WRITE.
In nnn&#x27;s help, listed among the keys activating this &#x27;Open file&#x2F;enter dir&#x27; is the &lt;Return&gt; key, in addition to the usual move right keys (so &#x27;l&#x27; and right arrow). A clear expression that in the authors intention those keys have equivalent functionality.<p>So imagine you&#x27;re browsing around the file system as fast as your fingers and eyes allow (after, that&#x27;s the beauty of the fast text&#x2F;ncurses interfaces, yes?). You just want to examine stuff, look at files, poke into configurations, maybe for a archive you just downloaded. Archive that might or might not have executable stuff and&#x2F;or potentially harmful things. You&#x27;ve located the dir path you want to go into, you dive in and before you realize you need to hit the brakes on that &#x27;l&#x27; key, you end up moveing RIGHT on SOMETHING (it happened so fast you&#x27;re not even sure what it was), and that SOMETHING was executed&#x2F;loaded, now some application is opened, and on top of that you were continuing to type so that application receives your keys and does who-knows-what (well, depending on what was launched).<p>WTF ???
The first time it happened, I could not believe such a UI design decision: mixing NAVIGATION and OPEN operations on the SAME KEY. OPEN is a sensitive, potentially disruptive operation: there SHOULD be some minimal friction provided in the interface before one is allowed to proceed.<p>It moved this nnn from potentially one my favorite tools, into a totally love&#x2F;hate relationship. Yes, &quot;love&quot; because indeed it does some  things well. But the mistake of this RIGHT&#x2F;OPEN snafu is enough to more than cancel any other qualities.