Select first file by default in netrw

Question

When I open a directory in netrw, the .. directory at the top is selected by default

How can I make netrw always select the first listing that is not .. or . by default instead?

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Thanks to a comment, I tried changing the sort order to put .. and . at the bottom of the list. So I've tried setting

:let g:netrw_sort_sequence='[\/]$,,\.bak$,\.o$,\.h$,\.info$,\.swp$,\.obj$,^\(?!\.|\.\.\)$'

But my netrw looks exactly the same after doing this.

I thought the extra pattern ^\(?!\.|\.\.\)$ would match any name that is NOT . or .. exactly, and then sort those before sorting .. and ..

Answer 1

I wanted the same thing and came up with the following:

augroup NetrwSetup
  autocmd!
  autocmd FileType netrw call s:netrw_select_first_non_dot()

  function! s:netrw_select_first_non_dot()
    if &filetype == 'netrw'
      " Move cursor down until a non-dot item is selected
      call cursor(1, 1)
      normal j
      while getline('.') =~ '^\.'
        normal j
      endwhile
    endif
  endfunction
augroup END