XFM - The X File Manager (ver 1.4.2) ------------------------------------ (c) Simon Marlow 1990-1993 simonm@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (c) Albert Graef 1994-1997 ag@muwiinfa.geschichte.uni-mainz.de (c) Till Straumann 1997 strauman@sun6hft.ee.tu-berlin.de This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For the latest information and sources please visit the xfm homepage at http://www.musikwissenschaft.uni-mainz.de/~ag/xfm/. Installation instructions can be found in the INSTALL file (who would have guessed that ;-)). This is a powerful file and applications manager program written using the X toolkit. It contains virtually all of the features that you would expect in a file manager -- move around your directory tree in multiple windows, and move, copy or delete files with simple mouse operations. Directory displays are updated automatically in regular intervals when the contents of a displayed directory changes. The integrated application manager allows you to load files into your favourite applications from the file manager by dragging icons. It can also be used as a "shelf" onto which you can place files and directories you are currently working with. A special LOAD action for application files enables you to manage different application groups. User-definable file types allow you to specify a command to be executed when double-clicking on a file or dropping other files onto it. The command can also prompt you for required parameters. Xfm makes it easy to configure special kinds of actions such as, e.g., replacing the contents of a compressed tar archive with a collection of selected files. A lot of corresponding examples can be found in the distribution, including a fully functional trashcan feature. Last not least, xfm can automatically mount and unmount special devices like floppies as you open and close the corresponding directories (mount points). So you won't have to fiddle around with mount or mtools commands any more if all you want to do is copy some files between the hard disk and your floppy drive. I think that this program compares well to other free -- and even commercial -- file managers. It is fast, convenient to use, and offers a lot of built-in functionality and configuration options. If you are not addicted to the shell and like to shuffle around files with one hand in order to perform tasks such as moving, copying, deleting, compiling, formatting, archiving, compressing, etc. etc., then xfm is certainly for you. The original version of this program was written by Simon Marlow at the University of Glasgow. I included Simon's README for reference purposes; see README-1.2. [Most of the information in this file is outdated; please refer to this README file and the man page for up-to-date installation and usage instructions.] Release 1.3 stemmed from my efforts to resolve some nasty bugs in the 1.2 beta version distributed with Linux slackware, and to add XPM support for displaying color icons in the file and application windows. As it came out, I also added a plethora of other features to make xfm the tool I was looking for; see the ChangeLog for details. Release 1.3.1 added an automatic shell detection feature, which has been contributed by Robert Vogelgesang (vogelges@rhrk.uni-kl.de). We hope that this transparently fixes the problems with different shell argument passing conventions which have been encountered with release 1.3. The configuration files supplied with the package should now work with any popular shell -- if not, set the new X resource Xfm.BourneShells; see the man page for details. Release 1.3.2 added a bunch of new features; the most important are listed below: * Improved support for creating symbolic links. The Link option now works completely analogous to the Copy option; in particular, it is now possible to create links for a selected set of files in a specified directory. * Rearranging items in the application window, which used to be a pain in earlier releases, is now a lot easier. Items in the application window can now be moved and copied using drag and drop, and cut/copy/paste gives a convenient way to move entries between different application files. There also is a new option for installing application groups, and the Back and Main buttons allow to navigate in the application group tree. * "Magic headers," contributed by Juan D. Martin (juando@cnm.us.es). With this feature it is now possible to identify file types by their mode and contents in addition to the filename patterns. This is implemented using a "magic" file format (see magic(5)) with some important extensions like mode checking and regular expression matching. It also allows you to specify custom icons for directories and executables in file windows. A sample magic file is included. Also, Juan wrote a tiny program named xfmtype which lets you determine the xfm magic type of a file. * A Filter option for the View menu, contributed by Kevin Rodgers (rodgers@lvs-emh.lvs.loral.com). This nice function allows you to restrict the set of files displayed in a file window -- for instance, only display *.c files. * A View option for the file popup menu (accompanied by a VIEW action which can be used in push actions), contributed by Scott Heavner (sdh@falstaff.MAE.cwru.edu). This option works analogous to the Edit option, but invokes a program for viewing a file (e.g. xless, available from ftp.x.org). * Default values in parameter dialogs, contributed by Brian King (ender@ee.WPI.EDU). Using the %parameter--value% notation, you can now specify default values for parameters in push and drop actions. * Lots of new icons, and a new set of standard config files. Juan D. Martin has compiled a comprehensive collection of fileicons. Take a look at the contrib/fileicons directory. * Besides this, I cleaned up the source tree, fixed some bugs, overhauled Imakefiles and added an "Imake.options" file for easier customization. Release 1.4 is mostly the work of Till Straumann from the Technical University of Berlin. He's done a marvellous job. Here are the most important user-visible changes (please refer to Till's README-1.4 for further details): * xfm now starts in the cwd instead of the user's home directory * the performance of the file view has been improved considerably; it's really impressive, especially if you're displaying directories with hundreds of files * the scrollbar position is retained during updates (everybody's favourite fix ;-)) * keyboard shortcuts for most menu operations and dialog buttons, improved scrolling text fields in dialogs * path history menu * log window for output of child processes * a new "shellCommand" resource now allows you to set the shell to be used for invoking commands independently from the SHELL environment variable * text display, file info and permissions now include the suid/sgid/sticky bits * X selection support: it is now possible to paste the paths of the selected file items (as strings) to other applications using the XA_PRIMARY selection * many bug fixes I also added some of my own favourite patches: * bug fixes in copy operation (patch contributed by Walt Killjoy (ngogn@clark.net)) and magic headers code (patch by Juan D. Martin) * transparently move files between different file systems (via copy/del) * new Rename and Xterm operations (inspired by moxfm), and an "About" dialog which displays a logo and version information * current path/application file name is shown in window titles * at startup, prompt user to run xfm.install if the .xfm dir does not yet exist (every sysadmin's favourite change ;-)) * an improved setup featuring additional file types and spiffy new 3d-look icons (see the contrib/3dicons dir) Enjoy! Albert Graef ag@muwiinfa.geschichte.uni-mainz.de