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2003-12-22
Emil Brink
gentoo: Frequently Asked Questions
0. INTRODUCTION
This file contains some frequently asked questions, and their
answers, about the X11/GTK+ file manager "gentoo". None of
these questions are actual, verbatim, questions asked by users.
They've all been constructed by me, around questions and wishes
sent to me by gentoo's users.
Q1. Does gentoo support drag-and-drop ("DnD") ?
A1: No, it currently does not. This is definitely the #1 most
asked for feature. However, there are some issues with it
that makes me hesitate in implementing it:
1. Should DnD be between gentoo and other applications
(e.g. xmms), and/or in gentoo internally? What should
gentoo do if you drag a file from a desktop's file
manager and drop it in one of gentoo's panes?
Supporting DnD internally would require a pretty
pretty hefty amount of internal rewriting. :(
2. Getting the GtkCList widget (which is what the panes
in gentoo are implemented with) to support DnD without
losing the possibility to drag to select multiple items
seems difficult. I am not willing to sacrifice the
multi-selection.
Q2: How can I make the font used in file listings bigger?
A2: By creating and editing the .gentoogtkrc file. See the
README.gtkrc for further instructions.
Q3: Compiling gentoo fails because <errno.h> doesn't exist or has
problems, what's up?
A3: You have an incorrectly or incompletely installed C compiler.
On some Linux varieties, you need to "make dep" in the Linux
kernel sources, since <errno.h> relies on kernel headers.
Q4: What about a port to GTK+ 2.0? It's out, you know...
A4: Yeah, I know. And no, I don't expect a port to be out any time
soon. For the following reasons:
1. GTK+ 2 is slow. It's unhurrying, slow-going, slow-paced,
leaden, sluggish, and generally unhasty. This has two direct
consequences: it makes me not want to work with it, since
it's simply less fun, and it makes me worry about ruining
gentoo's reputation of being a quick file manager. Perhaps
it's all my fault, for running it on such a slow machine,
but I have problems understanding the 10X slowdown compared
to 1.2.x. I just don't want to. I love the speed of 1.2.x!
2. Differences. GTK+ 2 is largely reworked compared to the 1.2
series, many of the main widgets gentoo rely on (such as the
GtkCLists used for the panes) are deprecated. Porting gentoo
to native, current, GTK+ 2 widgets could be a lot of work.
3. Spiral effect. If I get started redoing core parts of the
application, that could be contagious and I might end up re-
designing major parts of it. Which would be fun and good, but
could take up a lot of time. Especially considering all the
time I'd have to spend waiting for GUI redraws. Did I mention
there's a performance problem with GTK+ 2?
Q5. I get a weird warning about case sensitivity and ASCII?!
A5. Yes. This indicates that you have successfully built gentoo in a
localizable manner. It also indicates that gentoo has performed
tests on your host's strcoll(3) string comparison function, and is
letting you know of any limitations found.
Q6. The selection mouse handling is all weird, why can't it just behave
like the rest of the world does it?
A6. It behaves in the way it does since that's how DirOpus on the Amiga
did it, and the author happens to like being able to click and drag
and always add to the selection without having to touch the keyboard.
If you disagree, change the "Modify 'Control' Key State" dirpane
setting to "System Default".
Q7. What is "Click-M-Click"? It doesn't do anything?! Aargh!
A7. Sure it does, but it is a bit sneaky and hard to find by "mistake".
Basically, it's a simple mouse gesture. It stands for "click, then
move, and click again". It triggers if you click a file in one pane,
then move the mouse to the other pane and click again, all within
a pre-set time limit. It is useful for accessing frequently used
commands in a way that is more rapid(-feeling, at least) than using
a pop-up menu or even a keyboard shortcut. For example, by binding
it to archive extraction, you can extract an archive by just clicking
twice with a bit of (precise) mouse movement in between. Note that
Click-M-Click acts like a single global event, which you can only
bind to one action (on the "Controls" configuration page). To get
type-specific things to happen, just bind it to the FileAction command
using e.g. "FileAction action=cmc" and then define custom "cmc"
Actions in the appropriate Styles.
Q8. How do I set the background color of the panes? The bright white is
hurting my eeeyes!
A8. You need to go through the .gentoogtkrc file, and set the "base"
element in a style which then gets used by the "*mainPane0" and
"*mainPane1" widgets. See this page for more details:
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/gtk/gtk-resource-files.html.
Q9. Any further questions?
A9. No, it doesn't seem so. If you disagree, get in touch.
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