CMDFD: Fuzzy find commands by their description

No longer do you have to remember how to spell zathura or sxiv. Search for pdf reader or image viewer instead.

Dependencies

This script uses the following commands:

• fzf for the search interface
• apropos to source the default command list
• vim to format the default command list

Usage

• cmdfd [arguments]
• cmdfd --update
• cmdfd --help

cmdfd will allow you to fuzzy search all of the commands installed to your $PATH by description using fzf. The selected command will then be run in your terminal.

For performance reasons, the command list is generated and saved to $HOME/.local/share/cmdfd/apropos.list. Subsequent calls will use this list directly. To update the list, either delete it, or run cmdfd --update.

The special arguments --update and --help, apply to cmdfd itself.

• --update updates the list of available commands.
• --help presents information about cmdfd to the user.

Configuration

cmdfd searches the following lists for command information:

• $HOME/.local/share/cmdfd/apropos.list
• $HOME/.local/share/cmdfd/custom.list

apropos.list is a list of all the commands available to your shell, generated internally from apropos -s 1 ''. It can be rebuilt with cmdfd --update.

custom.list can be edited by you directly to provide descriptions for any custom commands (with arguments) you may wish to save.

Each item in the lists is of the format: [command [args]] -:- [description]

For example: feh --bg-fill -:- Set your wallpaper (filled)