RFile – Reductionist’s File Manager

File navigation in easy manner

Arrow Up Screenshot of the file manager RFile Arrow Down

RFile is a file manager that provides a conventional GUI for navigating the file system and supports basic file and folder operations.

RFile began as a by-product of the other project. My original goal was to create a custom file selection dialog because the one provided by the GTK3 toolkit didn’t fully meet my needs. Once the dialog was complete, it made sense to re-purpose its core functionality into a standalone file management application.

Beyond standard file manager features, RFile includes several capabilities that are absent from typical programs. For example, it can display and modify extended file attributes – a feature that users might find valuable.

Initially, the application used GtkIconView for displaying items in the compact mode. Due to limitations in this widget, I replaced it with a custom solution. The compact mode is designed to display as many items as possible without requiring scrolling. On a typical 1920 × 1080 px screen with 10 pt font size, over 300 items fit in the visible area – enough to display the entire contents of the directory /usr/share/ in its initial state at once.

The program is somewhat experimental in nature, reflecting the various design choices required when writing the code of a non-trivial application. The software developer regularly needs to meet such decisions prioritizing one solution while setting aside others.

The program consists of a single file and runs out of the box.

VersionSizeOSPlatform
1.0223,8 K
(229 144 bytes)
Linux Mint 17 (Ubuntu 14.04)
or later/similar
32-bit,
GTK 3.10/3.24
RFile
SHA-256: 452d2073cf965a9c9dc80bb4d5746a7a77638bc1ffa0b4f924eeab6dbdd81e52
1.0239,8 K
(245 584 bytes)
Linux Mint LMDE 6 (Debian 12)
or later/similar
64-bit,
GTK 3.24
RFile
SHA-256: 180289a660018abf681983d5d9ec4965de69e91f9cb37b9185c1b2da999beb7c
© A. Rumyantsev, 2025/2026
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