Skip to main content

​
Overview

toni automatically saves your UI preferences to ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json as you work. This includes column visibility, sort order, active columns, and filter state for each table view. Preferences are defined in internal/ui/prefs.go:10 and persist across sessions.

​
Preferences File Location

~/.toni/ui_prefs.json
This file is automatically created when you first modify any UI setting.

​
Preferences Structure

The preferences file stores settings for each table view: 
{
  "visits": {
    "sort_key": "visited_on",
    "sort_desc": true,
    "hidden_columns": ["notes"],
    "active_column": "restaurant"
  },
  "restaurants": {
    "sort_key": "name",
    "sort_desc": false,
    "hidden_columns": [],
    "active_column": "name"
  },
  "want_to_visit": {
    "sort_key": "priority",
    "sort_desc": true,
    "hidden_columns": [],
    "active_column": "restaurant"
  }
}

​
Table Columns

​
Restaurants View

From internal/ui/restaurants.go:42, available columns:
  • name - Restaurant name (width: 24)
  • address - Street address (width: 20)
  • city - City (width: 14)
  • area - Neighborhood/area (width: 14)
  • cuisine - Cuisine type (width: 14)
  • price - Price range ($-$$$$, width: 10)
  • rating - Average rating (width: 8)
  • visits - Number of visits (width: 8)
  • last - Last visit date (width: 14)

​
Visits View

Available columns for the visits table:
  • restaurant - Restaurant name
  • visited_on - Visit date
  • rating - Visit rating (1-10)
  • notes - Visit notes
  • would_return - Return preference

​
Want to Visit View

Available columns for the want-to-visit list:
  • restaurant - Restaurant name
  • notes - Notes about why you want to visit
  • priority - Priority (1-5)

​
Keyboard Controls

All table customization is done via keyboard shortcuts defined in internal/ui/keys.go:48:

​
Column Navigation

  • Tab - Next column
  • Shift+Tab - Previous column
  • 1-9 - Jump to column number (when in column jump mode)

​
Sorting

  • s - Sort active column ascending
  • S - Sort active column descending
  • Press s again to cycle: ascending → descending → no sort
From internal/ui/want_to_visit.go:234, sorting behavior:
  1. First press: sort ascending
  2. Second press: sort descending
  3. Third press: clear sorting

​
Column Visibility

  • c - Hide active column
  • C - Show all hidden columns
You cannot hide the last visible column. At least one column must remain visible.

​
Filtering

  • n - Filter by selected cell value
  • N - Clear current filter
From internal/ui/want_to_visit.go:295, filtering:
  • Filters rows where the active column matches the selected cell’s value
  • Case-insensitive matching
  • Press n again on the same value to toggle filter off
Filtering is only available for columns with non-empty values in the selected row.

​
Customization Workflow

1

Navigate to a column

Use Tab or Shift+Tab to move between columns until you reach the one you want to customize.
2

Apply customization

  • Sort: Press s or S
  • Hide: Press c
  • Filter: Select a row and press n
3

Automatic save

Your preferences are automatically saved to ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json when you quit toni.

​
Examples

​
Hide the Address Column in Restaurants

  1. Open restaurants view (r)
  2. Press Tab until “address” is highlighted
  3. Press c to hide
  4. Press C to show all columns again if needed

​
Sort Visits by Rating (Highest First)

  1. Open visits view (v)
  2. Press Tab until “rating” is highlighted
  3. Press S for descending sort

​
Filter Restaurants by City

  1. Open restaurants view (r)
  2. Navigate to a restaurant in your desired city
  3. Press Tab until “city” is highlighted
  4. Press n to filter by that city
  5. Press N to clear the filter

​
Manual Editing

You can manually edit ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json if needed: 
# View current preferences
cat ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json | jq

# Edit with your preferred editor
vim ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json
toni must be closed when editing this file. Changes are loaded on next launch.

​
Resetting Preferences

To reset all UI preferences to defaults: 
rm ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json
The file will be recreated with default settings on next launch.

​
Reset Specific Table

To reset only one table’s preferences, edit the JSON file and remove that section: 
# Reset only restaurants preferences
jq 'del(.restaurants)' ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json > /tmp/prefs.json
mv /tmp/prefs.json ~/.toni/ui_prefs.json

​
Column Width

Column widths are defined in code (from internal/ui/restaurants.go:42) and cannot currently be customized through preferences. They are:
  • Fixed per column type
  • Optimized for terminal display
  • Ensure data fits without excessive wrapping

​
Implementation Details

Preferences are managed through the TablePrefs struct in internal/ui/prefs.go:11: 
type TablePrefs struct {
    SortKey       string   // Column key to sort by
    SortDesc      bool     // Sort descending if true
    HiddenColumns []string // List of hidden column keys
    ActiveColumn  string   // Currently active column key
}
Each table view (Restaurants, Visits, WantToVisit) implements:
  • ApplyPrefs(prefs TablePrefs) - Load saved preferences
  • Prefs() TablePrefs - Export current state for saving
These are defined in the tableController interface in internal/ui/table_controls.go:3.
Preferences are loaded automatically on startup and saved automatically on shutdown. No manual save command is needed.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us