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TUI Commands

Commands go to a place in the file and run counts. Press : in any view to open the command line in the footer, type the command, and press Enter.

  • Esc closes the command line, and so does Backspace when the line is empty.
  • The command line has no history, and only Backspace edits it.

Commands

Section titled “Commands”
Command What it does
:N Go to line N. In Hex view, go to byte offset N, in decimal. In the table view, show row N at the top.
:0xH Go to the byte at hexadecimal offset H. In Text and NDJSON views, go to the line that holds that byte.
:stats Show the file statistics
:count Count the matches of the current search
:count TEXT Count the occurrences of TEXT
:time T Go to the first line at or after time T

There is no command to quit: :q shows Unknown command: q. Press q to quit.

Go to a line or an offset

Section titled “Go to a line or an offset”

:N takes a line number, starting at 1. Text view places the line in the middle of the screen. A number past the end goes to the last line. For example, :1204 goes to line 1,204.

In Hex view, the number is a byte offset in decimal, and :0x1F400 takes it in hexadecimal. Both place the byte’s row in the middle of the screen.

In the table view, :N shows row N at the top of the table, counting the rows as the table shows them. :0xH has no effect in the table view.

In the NDJSON view, :N scrolls to the record, but the focus stays where it was: the next key that moves the focus scrolls back. Move the focus with the scroll keys instead.

File statistics

Section titled “File statistics”

:stats reads the whole file and shows a box titled File Stats. While it reads, the box shows Computing…. Then it shows:

Field Meaning
Lines Number of lines
Words Number of words
Chars Number of characters
Non-ws Number of characters that are not whitespace
Bytes File size

The box also shows how long the count took. Press any key to close it. See File statistics for how the desktop app counts the same values.

Count matches

Section titled “Count matches”

:count counts every match of the current search, with its mode and options, without listing them. The footer shows the result, for example 5321 matches (842ms), until you start another search or press Esc. Without a current search, vaste-tui shows No active search — run a search first.

:count TEXT counts the occurrences of TEXT as plain text, matching case exactly. For example, :count ERROR does not count error.

Running :count while a search is still running stops that search. Wait for the search to finish first. If the count cannot run, the footer shows 0 matches.

Go to a time

Section titled “Go to a time”

:time T goes to the first line at or after the time T and switches to Text view. It works in files whose lines start with a timestamp format that vaste-tui recognizes. See Timestamps and go to time for the formats.

T can be:

Form Example
A date and time 2026-09-26 14:03:11, 2026-09-26T14:03, with seconds and fractions optional
A date 2026-09-26, for midnight
A time of day 14:03:11 or 14:03, on the date of the file’s first timestamp
An epoch time 1790000000 (seconds) or 1790000000123 (milliseconds)

The first :time on a file reads all its timestamps, which can take a while on a large file, and the screen does not respond until it finishes. vaste-tui saves the result with the file’s index, so the next time is quick.

If something goes wrong, an error box shows one of these messages:

  • No timestamp format recognised in this file
  • No timestamps found in this file
  • Not a time: T (try 14:03:11, 2026-09-26 14:03, or an epoch)

:time without a time shows Unknown command: time.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”