SFM -- A Simple, Keyboard-Based File Manager

Here's the manual page, which explains how to use it in some detail.

sfm is primarily for geeks. Or -- more specifically -- users who find it more convenient to interact with computers by typing, rather than by pointing and clicking.

One novel -- to me -- feature of sfm is the way the user navigates by search filtering. A search filter allows the user, though just a few keystrokes, to substantially reduce the number of files or directories, and rapidly home in on the file or directory of interest. While this was novel to me when I implemented, I've since seen that a similar feature is an integral part of Apple's iTunes.

Here also are the source, and -- for FreeBSD -- the port. The Makefile with the source should be fairly self-explanatory. You'll need screen and again to get sfm running. For FreeBSD, screen is available as a port/package under misc/screen.

sfm was developed on FreeBSD, but may (should?) work on other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux.