You can still do that? I mean, there are certainly places where the interaction happens to be more cumbersome than it is in a TUI, because the relevant piece was designed mouse-first. However, one reason I prefer Windows as a desktop UI is that it was designed to be fully operable by keyboard as well.
You could see the files as you scrolled through them. I don't think you understood how it works, I didn't do a great job explaining it. You can see the content of the files instantly on the screen as you go through them. Similar to how preview works on Mac