


FILERUNNER 

    - a simple and efficient file manager with FTP

(C) 1996, 1997 Henrik Harmsen




FEATURES
========

  * Easy, quick usage.
  * History of the last visited directories.
  * Hotlist, allows you to save often-visited locations.
  * Recursive Hyper-Menu of the entire file directory tree for quick 
    directory traversing.
  * Can browse FTP directories as easy as normal directories.
  * FTP capabilities:
    - Copy to and from FTP files or directories (recursive).
    - FTP Delete (recursive), FTP Makedir, FTP Rename.
    - Rule based configuration of FTP site logins. Set up
      simple rules for which sites are anon FTP and which 
      require user/password etc.
    - Supports FTP through proxy.
  * Asynchronous file operations (background execution). Includes
    FTP transfers.
  * Built-in command shell windows. Synchronized with file panels.
    These have history, aliases and file name completion.
  * Extendable by adding your own command buttons.
  * Very configurable.
  * User-defined file-pattern/actions. (*.jpg -> launch image viewer etc.)

  New in 2.2:
  * Find Files function for both Unix files and FTP sessions.
  * Chmod (change file permissions) GUI function.
  * Copy with resume for FTP. Let's you continue an FTP transfer that
    was previously aborted.
  * History of visited directories is now saved to disk.
  * Background execution of all shell commands.
  * And lots more of minor enhancements and bug fixes. 
    (See the online Help->History)

  New in 2.2.1:
  * Various smaller bug fixes.


REQUIREMENTS
============

* A standard Unix platform.
* Tcl/Tk 7.5/4.1 or 7.6/4.2 (preferred and default). FileRunner is not 
  supported on alpha or beta versions of Tcl/Tk.
* An ANSI C compiler if you can not use the precompiled binaries.

FileRunner does not need rebuilding the wish binary. It uses the
binary extension mechanism in Tcl to add commands written in C.


COMPATIBLE PLATFORMS
====================

It should run on any platform that meets the requirements above. It
has been tested on the following platforms:

 - Linux 2.0.x ELF with an ELF gcc compiler
 - SunOS 4.1.4 with the acc compiler
 - Solaris 2.5 with the cc compiler
 - Irix 5.3
 - UnixWare-2.x (Intel-SVR4.2MP)
 - HP-UX
 - Dec Alpha OSF (Digital Unix) 3.2
 - FreeBSD 2.1.5.
 - SCO OpenServer v5.0
 - AIX
 - NetBSD

Tell me if you get it up and running on something else!


INSTALLATION
============

Installation is fairly simple. The main thing to note here is that you
unpack directly to where the stuff is to be installed. You never do a
"make install".


  1. Unpacking in the right place

Unpack the FileRunner archive somewhere where you want it installed,
like for example under /usr/local/lib. When you unpack it, a directory
called "FileRunner" is created and the files are placed underneath
it. Cd to this directory.


  2. Fixing an ext.so file
                                   
FileRunner needs a library of functions that have been written in C. The
necessary library has been precompiled on a few platforms:

- If you are running Linux on an Intel machine, copy ext.so.linux_x86
  to ext.so.

- If you are running SunOS 4.1.x on a Sparc machine, copy
  ext.so.sunos41x_sparc to ext.so.

- If you are running Solaris 2.5 on a Sparc machine, copy
  ext.so.sunos55_sparc to ext.so.

- If you don't have any of the above, you should try to build it
  yourself. There are a bunch of Makefiles available to try:

- Makefile.gcc      This uses the gcc compiler and has been tried 
                    on Linux.
- Makefile.acc      This uses the acc compiler and has been tried 
                    on SunOS 4.1.4/4.1.3.
- Makefile.cc       This uses the cc compiler (ANSI version on 
                    Solaris 2.x) and has been tried on Solaris 
                    2.5 and UnixWare-2.x.
- Makefile.hpux     For the HP-UX platform.
- Makefile.osf      For the OSF platform. Or use Makefile.gcc 
                    instead (?).
- Makefile.irix     For the IRIX platform.
- Makefile.irix2    Another one for the IRIX platform if the first
                    one doesn't work.
- Makefile.freebsd  For the FreeBSD platform.
- Makefile.aix      For IBM AIX platforms.
- For SCO, see note 1 below.

The Makefiles are all located under Makefiles/ in the FileRunner
distribution directory.

Pick one of the Makefiles you think might work and edit it to reflect
the platform you are using. It's a tiny Makefile, so it shouldn't be
too difficult. Then make it: "make -f Makefiles/Makefile.xxx"

When you have an ext.so file you can try it out by running the "fr"
script: "./fr &"

One day when I have loads of time on my hands I might consider using
the GNU autoconf utility to avoid this mess of Makefiles... :-)


  3. Making a soft link

The final stage of installation is to soft-link the fr script to where
you want installed in your path. If you want it in /usr/local/bin, and
you unpacked the FileRunner archive under /usr/local/lib, you do the
following:

> ln -s /usr/local/lib/FileRunner/fr /usr/local/bin/fr

It's important you make this a soft link and not just copy it. If you
don't, FileRunner will not find the rest of itself and will not start
up. It uses the link to find the necessary stuff it needs.


  4. If you're running on Tcl/Tk 7.5/4.1.

Then you have to change wish4.2 to wish4.1 in the first few lines of
the three files: fr, frftp and frcolor. Note also that the Makefiles
as default choose include files from Tcl/Tk 7.6/4.2 so you'll have to
change that too.

Last note: There is an icon GIF file "fr.gif" you can use if you need an
icon for FileRunner. I've tried to make a color icon default for
FileRunner but I can not figure out how to do this...


WHERE TO GET FILERUNNER
=======================

Use one of these sites:

http://www.cd.chalmers.se/~hch/filerunner.html
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming/FileRunner_x.x.tar.gz
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/xutils/managers/FileRunner_x.x.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/utilities/FileRunner_x.x.tar.gz


WHERE TO GET TCL/TK
===================

For all platforms:
  ftp://ftp.sunlabs.com/pub/tcl

For Linux, prebuilt binaries are usually in:
  ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/lang/tcl

Don't use beta Tcl/Tk versions with FileRunner.

Tcl/Tk is really easy to build yourself. (Easier than FileRunner :-)


COMMON PROBLEMS
===============

See the FAQ-file in the installation. Please see chapter 13 in the
online guide too.


KNOWN BUGS
==========

FileRunner cannot handle files or directories that start with a
~-character. This looks like a bug in Tcl7.5 actually. Tcl7.5 parses a
file called "~foo" as the home directory of user "foo", which is not
correct if you really mean the file "~foo"...

Don't press Alt + a key...

If your timezone is set to GMT+xx then you might get incorrect dates
when you view FTP listings. This is because the Tcl/Tk clock scan
function cannot deal with GMT+xx elements in the date string. Don't
know why. Use another timezone notation instead, like PST or MET etc.

Also see the FAQ.


E-MAIL LIST WITH ANNOUNCEMENTS
==============================

Mail me if you are interested to be on the FileRunner announcement
mailing list. I won't send announcements of every release to the
newsgroups so if you want to know if a new release is out you should
either check the web page regularly or join the list.


FILERUNNER IS POSTCARDWARE/SHAREWARE
====================================

If you use FileRunner for non-commercial use, the cost is only a cool
postcard from you. If you use it for commercial use, it is US$20 per
user. See detailed information in the User's Guide where you will also
find my address.

FileRunner is Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 Henrik Harmsen.


  Henrik Harmsen

Email:
  hch@cd.chalmers.se
  Henrik.Harmsen@erv.ericsson.se

For more contact info see online guide.


ADDENDUM
========

Note 1, fix to build on SCO OpenServer 5.0
------------------------------------------

For SCO OpenServer I have not fixed specific changes in the ext.c file
since it was getting too complicated already with the zillion
implementations of the statfs() call. Anyway, here is a description
for changes you need for this platform (thanks to Daniel Cox):

1. Start with Makefile.cc (I think)
2. Add -lc to the Makefile
3. Change include <sys/statvfs.h> to <sys/statfs.h>
4. change all calls statvfs to statfs
5. change all calls f_bavail to f_bfree


Note 2, The Debian distribution
-------------------------------

This note is to the manager of the Debian distribution.

To have the documentation for FileRunner somewhere other than in the
distribution directory (where all the other FileRunner stuff is):
Create a file in the distribution directory called .fr and put the
following line into this:

set glob(doclib_fr) /usr/local/doc/FileRunner

(Adjust it to the correct location). Then copy over the documentation
to this directory. See the online guide about the system-wide .fr
file.





