tvdocker

Multi-window Docker TUI built on Turbo Vision (via tvision-rs): overlapping resource windows, logs side by side, and an embedded shell — the TUI never suspends. A rebuilt oh-my-docker on a true multi-window desktop.

The full feature tour — every window, dialog and live call, recorded from demo/tvdocker-demo.toml with ansidrama:

Build & test

Everything runs in the pinned container — no host toolchain required:

./dcargo  test  --all-targets

./dcargo  clippy  --all-targets  --  -D  warnings

./dcargo  fmt  --  --check

./dcargo  run  # build + run the TUI

Features

• Multi-window desktop — open Containers, Images, Networks, Volumes, Events and Statistics as overlapping windows, each independently moved, zoomed, tiled or cascaded; opening an item already on screen focuses it instead of duplicating it
• Never suspends — the shell and log views run inside the desktop, so the TUI keeps running while you work in a container (no terminal hand-off)
• Container list — running/exited containers with fuzzy search and an optional initial filter via the CLI argument
• Container details — the parsed inspect payload in scrollable sections (name, image, command, env, mounts, networks, ports, labels, …)
• Live logs — per-container streaming with follow/pause (F7), search, scrolling and export; one Logs window per container
• Embedded shell — docker exec into a live PTY with configurable shell, user and working directory per container, and scrollback; the config is persisted to tvdocker.toml
• File explorer — host ↔ container and host ↔ volume, two panes: navigate, filter, copy, rename, delete and create files/directories; a read-only Image Explorer browses an image's filesystem
• Image layers — Ctrl+L on an image (or Layers… in its context menu) opens the layer explorer: the layer list beside a colour-coded change tree (Added / Removed / Modified), with an efficiency score, the potential wasted space and the inefficient paths; it streams docker save under the hood and never starts a container
• Image management — REPOSITORY:TAG and SIZE, remove, prune/dangling cleanup, and Run… (F2) through a validated run form
• Networks & volumes — names, drivers, sizes and container counts; delete with confirmation; open a volume directly in the Explorer
• Live statistics — docker stats (CPU %, memory, net, block I/O, PIDs) per container, sortable by column
• Docker events — a real-time, filtered event stream, newest first
• AI diagnostics — right-click a container → Diagnose… compiles recent logs, exit code, stats and config into a local or cloud LLM for root-cause analysis and a repair playbook
• Context menus — right-click a row (or press Shift+F10) for its actions (Details, Logs, Shell, Explorer, Diagnose…, Start/Stop, Delete)
• Multi-select — Ctrl+A selects the filtered rows for batch actions
• Themes — Options ▸ Themes… picks a palette; Options ▸ Edit colors… edits and saves your own; the selection persists in tvdocker.toml
• Settings — Options ▸ Settings… edits tvdocker.toml in-app (F2 saves and live-reloads), including keybindings
• Self-update — Help ▸ Check for updates… queries the GitHub releases and can download and install the matching asset; an optional startup check only posts a status-line notice
• Keyboard-first — every action is reachable from the keyboard; the status line shows the focused window's contextual shortcuts and hides under F10; mouse scrolling and right-click are supported
• Fast & resilient — async polling keeps the UI non-blocking, logs and events use bounded ring buffers, and Docker reconnection is reported in the status line instead of crashing when the daemon is down
• CLI — --help/-h, --version/-V, and an optional <search_text> that pre-fills the Containers filter

Windows

Six resource windows come from the six-item Docker menu (Alt+D); the rest follow from a row's action or the menu:

Trigger	Key	Window
Docker → Containers	C	running/exited containers
Docker → Images	I	REPOSITORY:TAG, SIZE
Docker → Networks	N	name, driver, CONTAINERS
Docker → Volumes	V	name, driver, SIZE
Docker → Events	E	live stream, TIME/TYPE/ACTION/ID, newest first
Docker → Statistics	S	CPU %, mem, net, block, pids per container
on a row	Enter	Details — parsed inspect payload, one section set
on a row	F2	Logs ×N — per-container stream, follow/search/export
on a row	F4	Shell ×N — config dialog, then a live PTY
on a container	Ctrl+E	Explorer ×N — host ↔ container files
on a volume	Enter	Explorer ×N — host ↔ volume files
on an image	Ctrl+E	Image Explorer — the image's filesystem, read-only
on an image	Ctrl+L	Layers ×N — the layer list with the colour-coded change tree, efficiency score and potential wasted space; also Layers… in the context menu
on an image	F2	Run… — the validated run form
on a row	Shift+F10	context menu (mouse-free right-click): Explorer, Details, Logs, Shell, Diagnose…, Start/Stop, Delete (containers add Image — jumps to the Images window with the container's image under the cursor)
Options menu	Alt+O	Settings — the TOML editor (F2 saves + live-reloads)

Right-click a row — or press Shift+F10 on it — for the context menu (Details/Logs/Shell, Start/Stop, Delete, Diagnose…, Explorer; containers also Image, which opens the Images window with that container's image selected); Del deletes with confirmation; Ctrl+O opens the column picker (runtime-only — reopening resets it).

Opening an item already on screen focuses it instead of duplicating it, windows cascade (+2/+1) and shrink to fit, and each keeps its own filter (Esc clears selection → filter → close). Ctrl+A selects the filtered rows; the status line shows the focused window's contextual shortcuts and hides them under F10.

Layers (one window per image) lists the image's layers — compare marker, size, history command — beside the selected layer's changes as a colour-coded file tree (+ Added, - Removed, ~ Modified, blank Unmodified); the top line shows the total size, the efficiency score and the potential wasted space, and the bottom strip lists the inefficient paths (how many layers touched them, and the wasted bytes). Space/+ and - expand and collapse directories, * expands all, Ctrl+T toggles between comparing the selected layer and comparing the whole image against its base layer, A/R/M/U show/hide Added/Removed/Modified/Unmodified rows; in this window, Ctrl+O steps the sort column and / focuses the pane's filter bar. The analysis streams the image's docker save and never starts a container. The layer explorer itself — the two compare modes, the colour-coded change tree, the collapse/filter keys and the efficiency scoring — is borrowed from dive.

The Help menu also carries Check for updates… — a GitHub release lookup against this repository (src/domain/update.rs). When the release has an asset for your platform, the dialog offers to download and install it: the archive is fetched, unpacked, and the running binary is replaced on disk — restart tvdocker to apply. Without a matching asset the dialog points at the release page instead. The optional startup check (check_updates = true) only latches a status-line notice; it never installs.

Releasing

Push a version tag and the release workflow does the rest:

git  tag  v0.1.0 && git  push  origin  v0.1.0

1. test gates the build — the same pinned-container fmt + clippy + doc + test run as ci.yml, so a release never ships from a tree CI would have rejected.

2. build-platforms (a reusable workflow) cross-builds ten targets:

linux x86_64/aarch64/armv7/i686 (gnu) and x86_64/aarch64 (musl), macOS x86_64 + aarch64 (plus a lipo universal binary), and Windows x86_64/i686. Every build uses --locked, so the artifacts come from the committed Cargo.lock.

3. checksums writes SHA256SUMS.txt, then create-release makes a draft release and uploads the archives.

The assets are named tvdocker_<version>_<target-triple>.<ext> (.tar.gz everywhere except .zip for Windows) — the layout src/domain/update.rs looks for, so Check for updates… finds, downloads, and installs them. The workflow mirrors oh-my-docker's release mechanism (.github/workflows/release.yml there) so both projects ship the same platform set.

Re-run it manually from a v* tag (Actions → Release → Run workflow); the tag name becomes the release name and the version in the asset names.

CLI

tvdocker [--help|-h] [--version|-V] [<search_text>]

The positional argument pre-fills the Containers window filter.