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XFM - The X File Manager (ver 1.4.3)
------------------------------------
(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
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