How to visualize directory tree structures?

Question

I know I can use tree to show the nested content of a directory. Alas, its output is hardly beautiful as I want to include it in a documentation. So eye-candy is a requirement.

So I was wondering if there is an easy way to generate a more beautiful representation of a directory's tree structure. I wouldn't mind a solution that generates awesome images with fancy configurable colors.

Answer 1

I developed a gem for this purpose, you list a set of paths with any tool like ag or find and pipe it to the command dirtree and it'll generate an HTML page that visualize the directory structure as a tree

Features

• zooming
• panning
• collapse/expand a node
• it's SVG so you can search inside the browser as normal

Project on github at blazeeboy/dirtree.

Answer 2

You can try:

 tree | zenity --list --title "Title" --text "Text" --column "Files"

Answer 3

Mindmapping software (such as freemind, or freeplane) have a nice directory layout capability built-in. And you can open/close subdir trees as needed to only display the ones you want. And easily customize colors and fonts or line style, either automatically (starting from one or several nodes) or one by one. And can encircle somes in clouds. And link between some. And add comments. And can easily copy one or several branch and paste into text. Try them ^^

Answer 4

Under Gnome, you could try baobab

Answer 5

I just saw gource and thought it was gorgeous. It is the most beautiful tree visualizer I have seen so far but it's alive. You would have to take snapshots of it.

"Software projects are displayed by Gource as an animated tree with the root directory of the project at its centre. Directories appear as branches with files as leaves. Developers can be seen working on the tree at the times they contributed to the project."

http://gource.io/

Answer 6

If you don't like the output of tree, don't use it.

Use a directory listing from a file-open or file-close dialog, and make a screenshot.