Comparison with ZTreeWin

First, a thank-you

I have used some flavor of XTree since the 1990s, and I have had a paid ZTreeWin license since 2013. To me, ZTreeWin is still the best text-mode file manager there is: fast, predictable, entirely driven by the keyboard, and built around a way of working (log the tree, tag across whole branches, act on the tags) that no other file manager has matched. Kim Henkel has kept the XTree way alive on Windows for decades, and Xylem would not exist without that work.

Xylem is not meant to replace ZTreeWin. It exists because I wanted the same way of working on Linux, where ZTreeWin does not run natively. Xylem also builds for Windows, because Rust makes that easy, but that is not a goal of mine: on Windows, ZTreeWin is well worth its license: ztree.com, and its users’ forum.

This page compares the two command by command, based on the official ZTreeWin v2.2 manual (ztwhlp.pdf, from 2011, in particular the “Quick Command Table” and section 3.7 on configuration). Newer versions of ZTreeWin may have changed details; if something here is out of date, please open an issue.

The same way of working

Tree with on-demand log (+, *), file window, Filespec, Branch, Showall (also of the tagged files only, Ctrl+S), tags (T, U, I, Ctrl+T/U), Copy/Move/Delete/Rename with the Ctrl (tagged) and Alt (tagged with paths) versions, Make dir, Delete dir, Prune, Attributes, View, Edit, eXecute, Compare (directory and branch), Sort, Log, split window (F8 and Tab), relog (F3), Open (O), automatic refresh, browsing and extraction of archives, history in prompts, bookmarks, help (F1) and a configuration screen. The keys are ZTreeWin’s whenever possible; the exceptions are under “Different keys”, at the end.

What Xylem does not have yet

• Tree: Global (G), Graft (Alt+G), Mirror (Alt+M), Release/unload from memory (Alt+R, Ctrl+Backspace), Hide (Alt+H), Wash (Alt+W), Volume (Ctrl+V), F5/F6 (hide subdirectory levels), tag by attribute (Alt+T/U), Treespec in edit mode (F5, wildcards) and special folders (F6), type-ahead search with prompt (|) and active mode, drive switching (< and >).
• Files: Open in a new terminal window (Alt+O), Batch of the current file (Alt+B), JFC (J, compare the contents of two files), sHortcut (H), Print (P), owner/group (chown), Megaview (Ctrl+F7 in the file window), merge tagged files between windows (Ctrl+F6), Partial Untag (Ctrl+F8), Tags-Only outside Showall (Ctrl+Enter and Ctrl+F4, Ctrl+B in the tree).
• General: macros (F12), applications menu (F9), Quit and shell (Ctrl+Q), saving and loading the log (Zlist, Ctrl/Alt+Z), colors by name and attribute (ZCOLORS.INI), mouse, ZTreeWin command-line options, video commands (Alt+F6–F9).

Some of these have a stand-in in another program; see “What Xylem leaves to other programs”, below.

Where Xylem is simpler

ZTreeWin configuration options that were not brought over because they are Windows-specific: RSH attributes, junctions, OEM/ANSI, EBCDIC, window size, shortcuts (.lnk).

Where Xylem goes further

Things the ZTreeWin v2.2 manual has no counterpart for:

• A built-in terminal (Alt+X): the shell keeps running while you use the tree; a cd in the shell takes the tree along, and the shell follows the tree when you come back to it. Alt+O types the tagged files at the prompt. See the built-in terminal.
• Remote machines over SSH (xy user@host:): the tree, Branch, the viewer and Copy work on another machine, which has its own terminal too. See remote machines.
• Git (optional): status letters in the file list, a Git menu (Ctrl+G) and diffs in the viewer. See Git.
• Disk usage (Alt+W): a branch’s folders and files together, largest first, down to what fills the disk; Alt+K shows each folder’s share in the tree. See disk usage.
• Duplicates (Alt+Y): files and whole folders with the same contents, compared by SHA-256, or by the service’s own hashes in a folder mounted by rclone, with nothing downloaded. One copy of each group always stays. See duplicates.
• A viewer that reads more: syntax colors, the text encoding found by itself (UTF-8, UTF-16, CP850, Windows-1252, CP437), .gz, .xz, .zst and .bz2 files shown decompressed, and hidden text direction characters (Trojan Source) shown instead of obeyed. See the viewer.
• Tables and Markdown: spreadsheets, CSV, JSON Lines, DBF, SQLite and Parquet open in a grid with a SQL filter, and Markdown files open rendered. See the viewer.
• Archives without an external archiver: ZIP, 7z and TAR (plain, gzip, xz, bzip2, zstd) open as folders, and ZIP and TAR are created, all by Xylem itself. See archives.
• Batch rename with search and replace (s/foo/bar/), counters and case changes. See rename.
• Batch over records: Ctrl+B in the viewer turns the records of a table or the lines of a text into a script, JSON, CSV, XML, HTML, SQL or a SQLite database, with template files if you want. See Batch.
• Oops: O (or Ctrl+Z) puts back where it was what was last sent to the system trash. See delete.
• The clipboard everywhere: Y copies the path even over SSH or inside tmux (OSC 52).
• What a file is: a display mode (Alt+F) that tells, in the spirit of the file command, what each file contains, and another with owners and permissions.
• Looks: 12 ready-made themes and optional Nerd Fonts icons. Every key can be rebound under [keys] in config.toml. See configuration.
• Hostile files: archives, names and contents are treated as potentially hostile, with limits on everything read and decompressed (see the security statement in the README).
• Help in six languages (F1, then L), the same text as this manual and the man page.

What Xylem leaves to other programs

Some things Xylem does not do on its own on purpose: a dedicated program does them better, and Xylem brings it in.

• Hex editing: ZTreeWin edits bytes in its viewer. Xylem has no hex editor of its own: writing and maintaining one would be a lot of work for little use, and editing raw bytes by hand is an easy way to corrupt a file. Instead, E on a binary file opens hexedit, heh, bvi or dhex (whichever is installed, or the one you choose) inside Xylem’s frame and colors, or a graphical one such as ImHex or GHex. See Edit.
• Editing text: your editor ($VISUAL, $EDITOR, or the one set in F12), and a different editor per file type if you want ([editors]).
• SSH: the system’s ssh, so your keys, agent, ~/.ssh/config and jump hosts work as they do everywhere else.
• Cloud storage: Google Drive, S3 and others through rclone mount; Xylem recognizes the mount and adapts. See cloud storage.
• Git: the git program itself.
• Opening files (O): the desktop’s program for each type (xdg-open).
• Comparing two files’ contents (JFC in ZTreeWin): until it is built in, tag the two files and run diff %t with eXecute (X), or use the terminal.
• Printing (P in ZTreeWin): lp %t with eXecute.
• Other archive formats (ZTreeWin’s ZAAP): your archiver, with eXecute or in the terminal.

Different keys

The keys follow ZTreeWin’s. The exceptions:

All keys can be rebound under [keys] in config.toml.