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FAQ

Why not just use ZLocation ?

I wasn't aware of this when writing jumpfs. It looks great! If your day-to-day usage is just getting around folders in PowerShell it's probably a better solution.

There are some differences of approach between ZLocation and jumps

  • ZLocation requires you to use it as a replacement to cd and stores a searchable history of all the locations you've been. jumpfs is a bookmark system. (A long, long time ago it was a set of Perl scripts to allow me to share Emacs bookmarks with the bash and cmd shells.)

  • ZLocation is pure powershell, hence adds nice features such as tab-completion and simple installation. jumpfs uses a common .net exe 'engine' with simple PS/Bash functions/BAT scripts as the front end, does not (yet) offer tab-completion and requires a bit of profile fiddling for each shell you want to use it in. Jumpfs is conceived as a family of related scripts and utilities; hence it includes simple functions to open a code-editor or file-explorer and may conceivable grow to include a shell-extension and VS Code plugin.

  • zlocation is aimed at getting around folders. jumpfs allows you get around folders and files. I.e you can bookmark a line within a file and either 'go' to it (in which case you cd to the containing folder) or 'codego' to it to open your editor at that line. Jumpfs may (no promises) also be able to bookmark other things in future such as URLs.

  • jumpfs is aimed at a problem I suspect many developers and sysadmins face since the introduction of WSL; i.e. being able to get around in both filesystems on the same box and refer to the same items regardless of shell. I.e. you can bookmark a folder or file in WSL then get to it easily in PowerShell or vice-versa

As far as I can see, you could use both ZLocation and jumps together (and I probably will).

Wouldn't it be better if it was 100% PowerShell?

Yes, that would certainly be better if I didn't want it to support Bash and Cmd bookmarking. That requires some kind of common backend (even if just an agreed file format) and being a C# developer it's easiest to do that in C# and keep the script layering thin. Other functional partitioning would certainly be possible and might even be superior but this is the current one.

Why do some of the command names clash with things I have installed

go and mark in particular are popular verbs. Apologies if you are a golang developer. You're free to edit the scripts to change them to suit yourself !

How can I find out if there's a newer version with better features?

Run the jumpfs_info command - it will check for new versions.

Where is the bookmark file?

Run the jumpfs_info command - it will tell you.

Why did you use JSON for the bookmark file?

Because it's a reasonable compromise between human and machine-readable and .Net has a Json serializer built in. I wanted to be able to hack the file by hand if necessary and to allow (at least, in principle) for other client applications to use the same bookmark file.

Why isn't there a way to delete bookmarks

Ooops - forgot to include this in the first release. Coming soon....