Virtual filesystems
Each Newt pane displays a location supplied by a filesystem backend. A location may be a local directory, a remote machine, an object store, an archive, a disc image, or a set of search results.
The same navigation, viewer, selection, and file-operation commands are used where the backend supports them. Read-only locations disable operations that would modify their contents.
Choose or mount a location
Section titled “Choose or mount a location”Press Mod + Shift + L or use the filesystem selector in the pane header. The selector lists mounted locations first, followed by the types that can be mounted.
Mounted S3, SFTP, and remote-agent filesystems remain available until you unmount them. Use the × beside a mount in the selector to close it.
Where a mounted filesystem reports capacity, the selector fills in free space for each target after it opens. A slow or unavailable target does not delay the rest of the menu.
Windows filesystems are listed one drive at a time. Drive icons distinguish fixed, removable, optical, network, RAM-disk, and substituted drives; volume labels and mapped or substituted targets are shown when available. Newt refreshes the list when drives are attached or removed and when its window regains focus.
On Windows, press F11 to open the system Map Network Drive dialog. After a drive-letter mapping succeeds, Newt opens it in the invoking pane. Press literal Alt + F11 while a pane is on a mapped network drive to confirm and disconnect it. Newt does not force-disconnect a drive with open handles.
Archives, disc images, and search results are temporary. Newt keeps them mounted while either pane’s current location or navigation history still refers to them, then releases them automatically.
Available location types
Section titled “Available location types”| Location | Access |
|---|---|
| Local filesystem | Full read and write access, watching, metadata, and free-space reporting. |
| S3 or compatible object storage | Read and write access to objects and prefixes; no trash or Unix links and permissions. |
| SFTP | Remote files through the system SSH client, with broad read and write support. |
| Agent mount | A target reached through SSH, Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, or a custom command, mounted in one pane. |
| Archive | Read-only view of TAR, CPIO, ZIP, and related formats. |
| Disc image | Read-only ISO 9660 or UDF view. |
| Search results | Temporary flat view whose entries refer to their original files. |
See Filesystem capabilities for a comparison of supported operations.
Paths and the terminal
Section titled “Paths and the terminal”Virtual locations have display paths such as s3://bucket/key or sftp://host/path, but they are not necessarily paths a shell can use. When a pane is on a location without a native shell path, Newt keeps an existing terminal working directory rather than passing it an invalid path.
Opening a terminal from search results uses the directory that was searched. Full remote sessions are different: their terminals run on the session target and ordinary target-local paths work normally.
Refresh behavior
Section titled “Refresh behavior”Local and remote-agent locations can watch or refresh their listings as changes occur. S3, SFTP, archives, and images may require a manual refresh to show changes made outside Newt. Run Refresh File List from the command palette; it has no default shortcut.