uXplor README

Terry Loveall, loveall@iinet.com
http://modest-proposals.com/

What this world needs is a cheap 5 cent Explorer clone. Wiebe made a beautiful
start with WHIMp. The added functionality broadens the capabilities to more
closely match expected behavior for a dual pane file manager, while providing
flexible operation to match the users needs.

uXplor is a somewhat modified version of WHIMp. It has been extended to respond
to mouse/<Enter key> mime-type file opening and an extended right click sendto
secondary menu. In other words, uXplor has been given greater Explorer
compatability. But without the beautiful elegant start of Wiebe, it would not
exist.

Included within the package are three other applications: 

edx-1.04/edx:
my xlib only wordstar compatible text editor used for uxplor search results,

bin/mime_start:
a bash shell script derived from start-0.1.0, by William Lovas, a mime-type
file activation program, and

menu-3.00 derived from 'bs', from Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, a vertical
popup menu program for X11.

My thanks to both William and Luiz for providing the added functionality.

'Start.menu' is an X11 menu program called by the bash script sendto.
SendTo.menu is the menu script text file for Start.menu. Editable from the
'SendTo:' popup option.

'mime_start' is a bash shell script which invokes specified executables on
data files. 

DOS and SAMBA partitions have _everything_ marked as executable. I don't
usually try and execute code from these mounts but do access data files with
default applications. Data files are processed by the bash shell script 
'mime_start' which must be in the default search path. First it looks at
filenames to detect the file association and then, if it does not find one,
and the data file is marked as executable, it will attempt to execute it.
The same behavior occurs on native *NIX filesystems. If you need to execute
a file (e.g. a shell script that is automatically opened with an editor) use
the 'SendTo:' menu operation and select 'Execute'.

You will almost certainly want to edit 'mime_start' and 'SendTo' to fit your
own file association perversions (You have yours, I have mine :-).

Mime-type file associations/multiple files may be invoked by high-lighting
with <shift> arrow keys and pressing <Enter> or by right-click 'Open' from
the Option popup menu. Double clicking on a single file will also execute/
mime associate the specified solution. File associations are specified by
  /usr/local/bin/mime_start
text file, and are dynamically responsive to changes. Read this file for
detailed mime-association operation.

A 'SendTo:' sub-menu is now available on the Option popup menu. Executing
the 'SendTo:' function looks for an executable in the $PATH named 'sendto',
which executes the bash shell script:
	Start.menu /usr/local/bin/SendTo.menu "$@" &
'/usr/local/bin/SendTo.menu' contains the actual menu form in self-explaining
format. Multiple selections will invoke sendto multiple times.

See the subdirectory 'menu-3.00' for source and further operation help.

------------------------------
Original README file for whimp

But Wiebe, WHY on earth another file manager? Aren't there
ENOUGH linux file managers in this world?

There are enough file managers in this world, but none of them do what I want.
A file manager should do the folowing things:

- Let you browse (your ??) files in a natural way.
- Let you make selections.
- Allow simple operations on these selections (re(move)/rename/copy/chmod/etc).
- Accept drops all over the place.
- Allow drags.
- let you open programs to use the selected data.
- warn the user only if nescessary

If this program includes the above functions, none will be added. there are a
few points of concern on the design of this program:

- It should be stable. It shouldn't crash, never.
- It should not contain features that do not belong in a file browser. i.e.
  preview pictures (or sounds or html-files or anything else)
- It should be fast and (reasonably) small.
- It should be intuitive and good-looking.

the program is called WHIMP. this stands for WHAMp Incredible MP3 provider as
it is really only a filemanager to allow drag n drop between WHIMp and WHAMp.
(eventually..)

if you feel like it, send comments, beer, fanmail or patches to
4516@thrijswijk.nl.

Bye,

Wiebe Zoon
Bosboom toussaintplein 240
2624 DP Delft
The Netherlands

WARNING : THIS PIECE OF SOFTWARE IS STILL BUGGY. IT MIGHT DO VERY BAD THINGS
TO YOUR FILE SYSTEM.
