Better Man Viewer

A desktop-first man page reader for Linux, built with Tauri + React + TypeScript. It keeps the speed of man while making long docs easier to navigate with sections, search modes, and cleaner reading ergonomics.

Demo (Real fzf Session)

MP4 demo (higher quality)

Highlights

• Loads real system man pages through the Rust backend (man + col -bx).
• Section tree with collapsible hierarchy for pages like fzf(1) (OPTIONS -> SEARCH, etc.).
• Two search workflows:
  • Find: inline highlighting with Enter / Shift+Enter navigation.
  • Filter: narrow to matching lines, click to jump, return to full context.
• Adjustable zoom (Ctrl/Cmd +, Ctrl/Cmd -, Ctrl/Cmd 0).
• Wrapped line rendering tuned for terminal-like indentation and option descriptions.
• Persistent settings (theme, zoom, last search mode, window size).

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js ^20.19.0 or >=22.12.0
• pnpm
• Rust toolchain (for Tauri desktop runtime)
• Linux environment with man and col

Install

pnpm install

Run (Web Preview)

pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:1420.

Run (Desktop App)

pnpm tauri dev

Build + Install Binary (Local User)

pnpm install-app

This runs lint/typecheck/tests, builds a release binary, and installs it to ~/.local/bin/better-man-viewer.

Optional overrides:

• INSTALL_DIR=/custom/bin pnpm install-app
• INSTALL_NAME=my-man-viewer pnpm install-app
• CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/tauri-target pnpm install-app

Developer Commands

pnpm lint       # Biome checks for src/
pnpm typecheck  # TypeScript validation
pnpm test       # Vitest unit tests
pnpm verify     # lint + typecheck + tests
pnpm build      # Production web build

Hooks & Safety

This repo uses lefthook with gitleaks and lint checks.

lefthook install

Optional Shell Alias

If you want to launch this app from man, add:

man() {
  command better-man-viewer "$@" || command man "$@"
}

Bypass anytime with:

command man ls