Terminal Viewer
zetl view is a Xanadu-inspired two-pane reader for reading linked notes without leaving the terminal. It exists because most of the time you don’t want a browser — you want to sit with one note, glance at what it points to, and jump onwards when something catches your eye.
Why two panes
When you read a note in a normal editor, forward-links are just names — [[Zettelkasten Method]] tells you nothing about what Zettelkasten Method actually says. Ted Nelson’s original vision for Xanadu put the cited text right next to the citing text, bridged by a visible connector. zetl view does exactly that in a TTY:
- Main pane (left) — the note you asked for, rendered as Markdown. Every wikilink is annotated with a numbered anchor glyph
[1],[2],[3]in reading order. - Context column (right) — a stack of context cards, one per forward link. Each card shows the first few lines of the linked note, coloured to match its anchor.
- Bridge column (middle) — coloured connectors from each
[N]anchor to its card, so your eye can follow the citation at a glance.
In terminals narrower than 60 columns the layout collapses to single-pane and context cards become inline footnotes. You lose the bridges but keep the anchors.
Opening a page
zetl view "Zettelkasten Method" # by page name
zetl view # interactive page picker
zetl view "Project Notes" --context-lines 10
zetl view "Project Notes" --main-width 65
With no argument, zetl view launches an interactive picker of every page in the vault — type to filter, Enter to open.
Flags
| Flag | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
--context-lines <N> | 5 | Lines shown per context card. Range 1–20. |
--main-width <pct> | 58 | Percent of terminal columns for the main pane. Range 30–80. |
--at <TIME-EXPR> | — | Read a past snapshot (see Time Travel). |
-d, --dir <DIR> | . | Vault root. |
Keybindings
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
j / k | Scroll down / up (or cycle anchors in focus mode) |
Ctrl-d / Ctrl-u | Half-page down / up |
g / G | Jump to top / bottom of the note |
Tab | Toggle between scroll mode and focus mode |
Enter | Navigate to the focused link |
[ / ] | Session history: back / forward |
/ | Open the page picker |
? | Toggle the keybindings overlay |
q | Quit |
Focus mode is what makes the navigation fast. Hit Tab, then j/k steps from one anchor to the next (not one line at a time); the bridge column highlights the selected anchor’s connector; Enter opens that page. [ returns to where you came from, so you can explore breadth-first through a chain of notes and back-track without losing your place.
When to reach for it
- Thinking through a research question where the notes form a web and you want citations visible without tab-switching.
- Proofreading a chain of linked notes on a server over SSH where a browser isn’t available.
- Navigating a vault whose backlinks and forward-links you don’t know by heart yet.
For heavier reading — embedded images, wide tables, the full graph view — reach for Web Server instead.