How to exit the Ranger file explorer back to command prompt but keep the current directory?

Question

I am using Ranger terminal file explorer from within a linux terminal.
Say I start from command prompt in home directory and launch ranger

user@/home/user $ ranger

ranger opens..... and within the ranger program I explore to:

/media/ubuntu/sdf675d7sf5sdfs7/some_directory

If I then hit q to quit ranger, I am dropped back to the same folder I launched ranger from. i.e.

user@/home/user $

Is it possible to quit ranger, and remain in the directory I was in with ranger, i.

user@/media/ubuntu/sdf675d7sf5sdfs7/some_directory $  

Answer 1

According to its manual

--choosedir=targetfile    
    Allows you to pick a directory with ranger. When you exit ranger, it will write the last visited directory into targetfile.

So all you need to do is create an alias like this:

alias ranger='ranger --choosedir=$HOME/.rangerdir; LASTDIR=`cat $HOME/.rangerdir`; cd "$LASTDIR"'

And writing this alias into the rc of your favoured shell is recommended.

Answer 2

S

If you hit S, it opens a new shell on the current directory.

Then if you hit Ctrl + D on the shell, it goes back to ranger.

This workaround is often good enough.

Answer 3

I found an easier solution. When you install ranger, it will put a script in your bin folder which, if executed, will start the program. But if you source it, with

$ source ranger

it will launch ranger and drop you in the last visited folder when you exit.

so if you want this behavior by default, just do

$ alias ranger='source ranger'

or even better put it into your .bashrc file.

To see the documentation and implementation for this feature, read the ranger script in your bin folder.

Answer 4

To piggy back of of Gombai Sándor's answer, i suggest making a minor adjustment to the alias:

alias ranger='ranger --choosedir=$HOME/.rangerdir; LASTDIR=`cat $HOME/.rangerdir`; cd "$LASTDIR"'

By changing "$Home/rangerdir" to "$Home/.rangerdir" you make the file created by the alias hidden. just makes it so it is not annoyingly cluttering up the home folder. it makes no functional difference to how it works.

Answer 5

I stumbled upon a similar question elsewhere with better answer compared to Gambai and its other proposed variants. It is better since.

1. it will take care of the created file by putting it into the tmp folder so that it can be deleted by the system
2. it is more clean code (although the Gambai's answer can be converted to a function)

There is a function in a shell file already in ranger's git repo:

https://github.com/ranger/ranger/blob/master/examples/bash_automatic_cd.sh

function ranger-cd {
    # create a temp file and store the name
    tempfile="$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXX)"

    # run ranger and ask it to output the last path into the
    # temp file
    ranger --choosedir="$tempfile" "${@:-$(pwd)}"

    # if the temp file exists read and the content of the temp
    # file was not equal to the current path
    test -f "$tempfile" &&
    if [ "$(cat -- "$tempfile")" != "$(echo -n `pwd`)" ]; then
        # change directory to the path in the temp file
        cd -- "$(cat "$tempfile")"
    fi

    # its not super necessary to have this line for deleting
    # the temp file since Linux should handle it on the next
    # boot
    rm -f -- "$tempfile"
}

You can put this function in your favorite's shell rc (for example ~/.zshrc) file and either create alias and/or bind it to a key combination (again both can go in the rc file):

alias nav=ranger-cd

and/or

# This will run the function by Ctrl+O through returning
# the string "ranger-cd" in addition to a new-line character
# to act as Enter key-press
bindkey -s "^o" "ranger-cd\n"

Disclaimer: the bindkey above works in ZSH and you should change it based on your preferred shell

Answer 6

Thanks for Gombai for the inspiration, but on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS I found the solution didn't quite work. Modifying it slightly and saving as an alias in my .bashrc, the following worked perfectly (after creating the rangerdir file):

alias ranger='ranger --choosedir=$HOME/rangerdir;cd "$(cat $HOME/rangerdir)"'

The following post on askubuntu helped me out when I was trying to figure out why different solutions I was trying weren't working: https://askubuntu.com/questions/404141/why-cant-i-pipe-into-cd

Answer 7

may i one-up y'all? passing through the other arguments may be useful, so put this in your shellrc

function ranger () {
    /usr/bin/ranger --choosedir=$HOME/.rangerdir $@
    LASTDIR=`cat $HOME/.rangerdir` 
    cd $LASTDIR
    echo -n > $HOME/.rangerdir
}

Answer 8

Here's a more elegant way to it by writing a function wrapper. Just use the command ranger, and if you wanna sync directory change back to the main shell, quit ranger with capital Q.

(The codes below is test with Bash and ZSH.)

function ranger {
  local IFS=$'\t\n'
  local tempfile="$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXX)"
  local ranger_cmd=(
    command
    ranger
    --cmd="map Q chain shell echo %d > \"$tempfile\"; quitall"
  )

  ${ranger_cmd[@]} "$@"
  if [[ -f "$tempfile" ]] && [[ "$(cat -- "$tempfile")" != "$PWD" ]]; then
    cd -- "$(cat -- "$tempfile")" || return
  fi
  command rm -f -- "$tempfile" 2>/dev/null
}

This will let you sync back the directory change on demand. Use :q to quit normally, Q to quit and change your directory.