Video viewer
Play a video inside the pane with keyboard controls, and volume that is remembered.
The video viewer plays a video inside the active pane, in place of the file
list, so you can check a .mp4 or .mkv without launching a player. Read-only,
keyboard-controlled, no on-screen sliders.
Usage
- Put the cursor on a video and run View file from the command palette — the same command as for text and images; fman picks the viewer by file type. (View file in other pane opens it in the opposite pane instead.)
- The video fills the pane and starts playing immediately. A
current / totaltime readout —0:12 / 3:45— sits below it. - Escape, Enter or Backspace closes the viewer, cursor back on the same file.
- Tab switches to the other pane. The viewer stays open and keeps playing; Tab again brings focus back to it.
- Ctrl+Shift+P opens the viewer's own command palette.
Controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Play / pause |
| Left / Right | Seek -5s / +5s |
| Up / Down | Volume +5 / -5 (0-100), flashes Volume: N on screen |
| Escape / Enter / Backspace | Close viewer |
| Tab / Shift+Tab | Switch panes |
| Ctrl+Shift+P | Open viewer command palette |
Palette entries: Play / Pause, Restart, Mute / Unmute, Reset volume, Exit viewer. Mute has no default key — bind one yourself if you want it.
Volume and mute persist across sessions. The last value you set with Up/Down, Reset volume or Mute / Unmute comes back the next time you open any video.
Behaviour
- Read-only, same as the image viewer.
- One viewer at a time per pane. Opening a video while a text or image viewer (or another video) is open in that pane replaces it. The other pane is unaffected.
- No zoom. A video fills the pane at its native aspect ratio.
- Letterboxed with the pane's theme color.
- Recognized extensions:
.mp4,.m4v,.mkv,.webm,.avi,.mov,.wmv,.flv,.mpg,.mpeg,.ogv,.3gp,.ts. Anything else opens in the text or image viewer instead.
Bindable commands
Every action above is also a viewer-only command you can bind in your own
Viewer Key Bindings (<OS>).json — a separate file from the normal key
bindings. A rebind always beats the default key.
| Command | Default key | Action |
|---|---|---|
video_toggle_pause |
Space | Play / pause |
video_seek_forward |
Right | Seek +5s |
video_seek_backward |
Left | Seek -5s |
video_volume_up |
Up | Volume +5 |
video_volume_down |
Down | Volume -5 |
video_mute |
none | Toggle mute |
video_reset_volume |
none | Volume to 100 |
video_restart |
none | Restart from 0:00 |
viewer_close |
Escape/Enter/Backspace | Close viewer |
viewer_switch_panes |
Tab | Switch panes |
viewer_open_palette |
Ctrl+Shift+P | Open viewer command palette |
viewer_next_file / viewer_previous_file |
none | View next / previous file |
viewer_toggle_same_type_advance |
none | Toggle "advance only for same type" |
Playback
Video is decoded by libmpv, which brings its own codecs — mp4, mkv, webm,
avi and mov play the same on Windows, macOS and Linux regardless of what is
installed on the system.
- On Windows there is nothing to set up. The first time you open a video, fman downloads the required library once into your user data directory, with a real progress dialog you can cancel. Cancel it, or let it fail, and you get an alert instead of the viewer — nothing else breaks.
- On macOS and Linux, install mpv yourself:
brew install mpvorapt install libmpv2. fman finds it automatically. - If the library is missing, only the video viewer is affected. Browsing files and every other command keep working.