Television (tv)

A very fast, portable and hackable fuzzy finder for the terminal.

About

Television is a very fast, portable and hackable fuzzy finder for the terminal.

It lets you search in real time through any kind of data source (called "channels") such as:

• files and directories
• code
• notes
• processes
• git repositories
• environment variables
• docker containers
• ...and much more (creating your own channels)

with support for previewing results, customizable actions and keybindings, and integration with your favorite shell and editor.

Getting started with tv

tv uses channels to define different sources of data to browse and preview. It comes with several built-in channels for common tasks like browsing files, searching text, and viewing git repositories.

tv            # uses the default channel (usually "files")
tv files      # browse files and directories
tv text       # ripgrep-powered text search
tv git-repos  # browse git repositories

To get a list of available channels, run:

tv list-channels

To pull in the latest community channels from the github repo, run:

tv update-channels

You can also pipe output into tv to search through command results, logs, or any stream of text:

rg "ERROR" /var/log/syslog | tv
git log --oneline | tv
my_program_that_generates_logs | tv

And if you need a one-off channel for a specific task, tv's command line options let you create temporary channels on the fly:

tv --source-command "rg --line-number --no-heading TODO ."
tv --source-command "fd -t f" --preview-command "bat -n --color=always '{}'" --preview-size 70

Custom channels

You can create custom channels for any specific task you want to do regularly. Channels are defined using TOML files that specify how to get the data, how to preview it, and any keybindings or actions you want to add.

Example: TLDR pages channel

Create a channel: ~/.config/television/cable/tldr.toml

[metadata]
name = "tldr"
description = "Browse and preview TLDR help pages for command-line tools"
requirements = ["tldr"]

[source]
command = "tldr --list"

[preview]
command = "tldr '{0}'"

[keybindings]
ctrl-e = "actions:open"

[actions.open]
description = "Open the selected TLDR page"
command = "tldr '{0}'"
mode = "execute"

Start searching:

tv tldr

Switch channels using the remote control and pick from a large choice of community-maintained channels:

See the channels docs for more info on how to set these up.

Installation

1. Automatically select the best installation method
2. Linux
3. MacOS
4. Windows
5. NetBSD
6. Cross-platform
7. Precompiled binaries

Automatically select the best installation method

Running the following command will detect your OS and install television using the best available method:

curl -fsSL https://alexpasmantier.github.io/television/install.sh | bash

Linux

• Arch Linux, Manjaro, EndeavourOS, etc.:

pacman -S television

• Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, etc.:

VER=`curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/alexpasmantier/television/releases/latest" | grep '"tag_name":' | sed -E 's/.*"tag_name": "([^"]+)".*/\1/'`
curl -LO https://github.com/alexpasmantier/television/releases/download/$VER/tv-$VER-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.deb
echo $VER
sudo dpkg -i tv-$VER-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.deb

• ChimeraOS, Alpine Linux:

apk add chimera-repo-user
apk add television

• NixOS and other systems with Nix package manager:

# Stable version from nixpkgs
nix run nixpkgs#television

# Latest nightly version from GitHub
nix run github:alexpasmantier/television

MacOS

• Homebrew:

brew install television

Windows

• Scoop:

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install television

• Winget:

winget install --exact --id alexpasmantier.television

NetBSD

• pkgsrc:

pkgin install television

Cross-platform

• Cargo:

cargo install television

• Conda-forge:

pixi global install television

Precompiled binaries

Download the latest release from the releases page.

Usage

tv  # default channel

tv [channel]  # e.g. `tv files`, `tv env`, `tv git-repos`, `tv my-awesome-channel` etc.

# pipe the output of your program into tv
my_program | tv

fd -t f . | tv --preview-command 'bat -n --color=always {}'

# or build your own channel on the fly
tv --source-command 'fd -t f .' --preview-command 'bat -n --color=always {}' --preview-size 70

[!TIP] 🐚 Television has builtin shell integration. More info here.

For more information, check out the docs.

Using tv inside your favorite editor

• Neovim: tv.nvim (lua)
• Vim: tv.vim (vimscript)
• Zed: Easy Telescope-style file finder in Zed using television
• VSCode: using television as a file picker inside vscode

Credits

This project was inspired by the awesome work done by the telescope neovim plugin.

It also leverages the great helix editor's nucleo fuzzy matching library, the tokio async runtime as well as the formidable ratatui library.

A special thanks to tv's contributors for their help and support: