README

csvtab (extended)

A Total Commander Lister (WLX) plugin to view, filter, search, edit and transform CSV / TSV / TAB files.

This is an extended native Lazarus/FPC rewrite of the original csvtab-wlx by little-brother. It keeps the fast Lister workflow, but turns CSV viewing into a compact table workbench: open messy files, inspect them, filter and sort them, edit real CSV cells, try column transformations, and copy or export exactly what you need.

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Feature Highlights

Open messy CSV files with confidence

csvtab is built for the kind of CSV files that are almost, but not quite, regular.

• Detects ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-16LE and UTF-16BE, including BOM handling.
• Detects common delimiters automatically: comma, semicolon, TAB, pipe and colon.
• Supports quoted CSV, doubled quotes, multiline cells and empty trailing cells.
• Detects the effective column count from a configurable sample and treats short preamble rows before the first full-width row as comments.
• Skips leading comment/preamble rows in Auto/Hidden mode, including #, sep= and single-semicolon comment lines.
• Reports the configured size limit and real file size when a file is too large to load.

Fast table view

• Native owner-data ListView for large tables.
• Lazy cell value decoding: only sampled values are decoded immediately; the rest is decoded on demand and then in small background batches.
• Column widths are calculated before the grid is shown, so the first paint uses the final widths.
• Optional line-number column sized from the largest visible row number.
• Alternating row colours, current-cell highlight, dark mode and configurable fonts/colours.
• DPI-aware layout: filter row, status bar, transform sidebar, padding and fonts scale with the active monitor.
• Header text is bold, column dragging is disabled, and header/filter columns stay aligned during horizontal scrolling and column resizing.

Filters that stay responsive

• One filter field per data column, placed above the header.
• Filter expressions support text matching and the existing comparison operators.
• Filter changes are debounced: the table is updated 250 ms after the last keystroke, which keeps larger files much smoother while typing.
• Esc inside a filter field only returns focus to the table; it does not close the Lister.

Navigate like a spreadsheet

• Arrow keys move the current cell up, down, left and right.
• At the visible window edge, the table scrolls by row or column as needed.
• Ctrl+Arrow jumps to the first/last row or first/last visible column.
• Hidden columns are skipped during horizontal navigation.

Edit real CSV data safely

Edit mode turns the viewer into a careful CSV editor without throwing away the original file structure.

• Toggle Edit mode with Ctrl+E or Ctrl+R.
• Start editing the selected cell with Enter, F2 or double-click.
• Enter accepts an active edit, Esc cancels it.
• Insert a new empty row below the current row from the context menu.
• Delete selected rows with Ctrl+X or the context menu.
• Delete a column from the header/context menu in Edit mode.
• Save with Ctrl+S. Saving is atomic and preserves encoding, BOM, delimiter and comment handling as far as possible.
• Dirty files are marked in the status bar and prompt before close or reload.

Transform columns without touching the original

Transform mode opens a sidebar for trying column operations as a live, read-only preview. The source file is not changed until you explicitly export.

Area	What it does
Ordering	Move columns up and down
Columns	Add, remove or rename columns
Values	Set all cells, fill only empty cells, enumerate rows, set number formats
Presets	Load and save transformations as JSON
Export	Write the transformed result to a new CSV with selectable delimiter

Transform JSON files are compatible with the bundled Python workflow, so repeatable cleanup jobs can be saved and reused.

Status bar control

The status bar is interactive and reloads the document with the selected parser settings:

Segment	Options
Encoding	ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE
Delimiter	Auto, comma, semicolon, pipe, TAB, colon
Comments	Auto, Parse normally, Do not parse, Hide
Rows	Visible/total row count
Position	Current row:column, edit/dirty/transform state

The Comments segment also shows how many comment/preamble rows are hidden in the current mode.

Search, copy and URLs

• Total Commander search is supported via F3 and Shift+F3 for forward and backward search.
• C copies the current cell.
• Shift+C copies selected rows, respecting hidden columns and column order.
• Ctrl+C copies the current column if configured that way.
• The row-copy delimiter is configurable and defaults to TAB.
• Alt+click opens URLs found in cells.

Decimal alignment

With decimal-align=1 (default), numeric-looking columns are sampled and drawn with decimal alignment:

• floats using . and , are aligned at the decimal separator;
• integer cells in mixed integer/float columns align directly before the decimal anchor;
• pure integer columns are right-aligned;
• nonnumeric columns keep normal text layout.

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Right-click Menu

The grid context menu keeps the everyday actions close to the table:

Item	Shortcut
Copy cell	C
Copy row(s)	Shift+C
Copy column	Ctrl+C
Insert row below	Edit mode only
Delete row(s)	Ctrl+X, Edit mode only
Delete column	Edit mode only
Hide column	Ctrl+click header
Adjust all column widths	Ctrl+H
Show all columns	Ctrl+Space
Filters	toggle filter row
Header row	toggle first row as header
Edit mode	Ctrl+E
Transform mode	Ctrl+T
Save	Ctrl+S
Show line numbers	toggle line-number column
Dark theme	toggle dark colours

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Arrow keys	Move current cell up/down/left/right
Ctrl+Arrow keys	Jump to first/last row or first/last visible column
Enter / F2 / Double-click	Edit the current cell in Edit mode
Enter / Esc	Accept / cancel the active cell edit
Ctrl+E or Ctrl+R	Toggle Edit mode
Ctrl+T	Toggle Transform mode
Ctrl+X	Delete selected row(s) in Edit mode
Ctrl+S	Save the file
C	Copy current cell
Shift+C	Copy selected row(s)
Ctrl+C	Copy current column, depending on copy-column
Ctrl+Space	Show all columns
Ctrl+H	Measure every visible row and adjust all visible columns to their full required width
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+-	Increase / decrease font size
Ctrl+Mouse wheel	Zoom font
Alt+Click	Open URL in a cell
Click header	Sort column; third click restores original order
Ctrl+Click header	Hide column
F3 / Shift+F3	Search forward / backward via Total Commander
Esc	Close Lister; inside filter, return focus to table
1..8, N, P, Q	Forwarded to Total Commander according to INI options
F1	Open the original wiki

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Installation

1. Build the plugin with Free Pascal / Lazarus to produce csvtab.wlx and csvtab.wlx64.
2. In Total Commander open Configuration -> Options -> Plugins -> Lister plugins (WLX) -> Configure -> Add, then point it at the .wlx or .wlx64 file. Total Commander can also install the packaged zip automatically via pluginst.inf.
3. Open any CSV/TSV/TAB file in Lister with F3 or in the Quick View Panel with Ctrl+Q.

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Configuration

Settings live in csvtab.ini next to the plugin. A few common options:

Key	Meaning
font / font-size / font-weight	Grid font
language	Auto or a language code such as en, de, cs, or fr; legacy language names remain supported
start-mode	Start in default, editor or transformer mode
header-row	Treat the first row as a header (0/1)
filter-row	Show the per-column filter row (0/1)
show-line-numbers	Show the row-number column on the left (0/1)
decimal-align	Align mixed integers/floats at the decimal position (0/1, default 1)
theme-mode	tc follows Total Commander, light/dark force a fixed theme
dark-theme	Legacy fallback when theme-mode is missing (0/1)
skip-comments	0 parse / 1 keep comment as one cell / 2 hide / 3 auto-hide leading comments and blank rows
default-column-delimiter	Force a CSV delimiter; empty means auto-detect
column-delimiter	Delimiter used when copying rows (default TAB)
trim-values	Trim leading/trailing spaces and tabs (0/1)
max-file-size	Size limit in bytes (0 = unlimited)
allColumnsToMaxWidth	Measure every visible row and use each column's full required width, bypassing automatic width limits (0/1)
max-column-samples	Rows sampled for width, used-column and numeric detection
max-column-width	Maximum automatic column width; with exactly two columns it limits only the first column
copy-column	Ctrl+C copies cell (0) or column (1)
filter-case-sensitive	Case-sensitive filtering (0/1)
disable-num-keys	Do not forward number keys to Total Commander (0/1)
disable-np-keys	Do not forward N/P to Total Commander (0/1)

GUI translations are UTF-8 files in the language directory. The value of language maps directly to <code>.lng, so adding fr.lng makes language=fr available without changing the plugin. Regional codes first try their complete name and then the base language (fr-CA -> fr-ca.lng, then fr.lng). Auto follows Total Commander's language when a matching catalog exists and otherwise uses the Windows UI language. The included catalogs are English (en), German (de), Czech (cs), Ukrainian (uk), and Russian (ru). Missing files or individual keys fall back to the complete English catalog built into the plugin. | exit-by-q | Forward Q as close/exit key to Total Commander (0/1) |

All light- and dark-theme colours are configurable as RGB integers; see the comments in csvtab.ini for the full list.

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Notes

• default-column-delimiter controls the delimiter used for parsing when set. column-delimiter controls the delimiter used when copying rows.
• Comments: Auto hides only the leading preamble/comment block. Later comment lines inside the table remain visible.
• Comments: Hidden hides comment lines and blank lines.
• The initial focus is placed on the table only in a separate Lister window; in Quick View the focus remains with Total Commander.

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Credits

Based on csvtab-wlx by little-brother. Original project licensed under its respective terms; see LICENSE.