winless

README

winless

A less-like terminal pager for Windows — single binary, no runtime, no dependencies to install.

Features

• Scroll files or piped stdin in the terminal
• Syntax highlighting for Go, JS/TS, Python, Rust, C/C++, Shell, JSON, YAML, TOML, CSS, HTML, Markdown, Ruby
• Regex search forward and backward with match highlighting
• Mouse drag to select and auto-copy to clipboard — drag to highlight, text is copied on release
• y key — copy the current line to clipboard instantly
• Follow mode (like tail -f) for live log watching
• Line wrap / chop toggle
• Optional line numbers
• Mouse scroll support
• In-pager help overlay (h)

Install

go install github.com/fermat-tech/winless@latest

Or grab a pre-built .exe from the Releases page — no Go toolchain needed.

Requires Go 1.21+ to build from source. Produces a single self-contained .exe.

Usage

winless [options] <file>
command | winless [options]

Options

Flag	Description
-N, --line-numbers	Show line numbers
-S, --chop-long-lines	Chop long lines instead of wrapping
-f, --follow	Start in follow mode (like tail -f)
-h, --help	Show help

Key Bindings

Navigation

Key	Action
↑ / k, ↓ / j	Scroll one line
PgUp / b, PgDn / Space	Scroll one page
g / Home	First line
G / End	Last line
← / →	Horizontal scroll (chop mode)

Search

Key	Action
/pattern	Search forward (regex)
?pattern	Search backward (regex)
n / N	Next / previous match

Copy

Key / Action	Description
Mouse drag	Select text; automatically copied to clipboard on release
y	Copy current line to clipboard
Escape	Clear selection

Toggles & Other

Key	Action
S	Toggle wrap / chop mode
H	Toggle syntax highlighting
F	Follow mode — any key stops
h	Key reference overlay
= / Ctrl+G	File info
q / Q	Quit

License

MIT

Documentation

Overview

winless is a less-like terminal pager for Windows.

It pages files or piped stdin with syntax highlighting, regex search, follow mode (tail -f), mouse-drag copy-to-clipboard, and an in-pager key reference overlay. A single self-contained .exe with no runtime or external dependencies required.

Install

go install github.com/fermat-tech/winless@latest

Or download a pre-built binary from the Releases page on GitHub.

Usage

winless [options] <file>
command | winless [options]

When no file is given and stdin is a pipe, winless pages stdin.

Options

-N, --line-numbers      Show line numbers
-S, --chop-long-lines   Chop long lines (no wrap); toggle with S key in-pager
-f, --follow            Start in follow mode (like tail -f); any key stops
-h, --help              Print help and exit

Navigation

↑ / k          Scroll up one line
↓ / j          Scroll down one line
PgUp / b       Scroll up one page
PgDn / Space   Scroll down one page
g / Home       Jump to first line
G / End        Jump to last line
← / →          Scroll horizontally (chop mode only)
Mouse wheel    Scroll three lines up or down

Search

/pattern       Search forward (regular expression, case-insensitive)
?pattern       Search backward
n              Jump to next match
N              Jump to previous match

While typing a pattern, paste the clipboard into the search box with Ctrl+V, Insert (Shift+Insert), or right-click.

Copy to Clipboard

Mouse drag     Select text; automatically copied to clipboard on release
y              Copy the current top line to the clipboard
Escape         Clear the selection highlight

Toggles and Other Keys

S   Toggle wrap / chop mode (chop truncates long lines; wrap is the default)
H   Toggle syntax highlighting on / off
F   Enter follow mode (live tail); press any key to stop
h   Show the in-pager key reference overlay
=   Show file info (name, current line, total lines, mode)
q   Quit

Syntax Highlighting

Language is detected from the file extension. Supported languages: Go, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Shell, JSON, YAML, TOML, CSS/SCSS, HTML/XML, Markdown, Rust, C, C++, Ruby.

Follow Mode

Follow mode (F key or -f flag) polls the file every 250 ms and appends new lines as they arrive, keeping the view scrolled to the bottom — equivalent to tail -f. It requires a real file; stdin is not supported. Press any key to exit follow mode.

Rename-Friendly

The binary reads its own name at startup via os.Args[0], so renaming the .exe changes the name shown in the status bar and help text without recompiling.