README

Nimf

	Version  : %%VERSION
	Author   : Ferry Boender <%%EMAIL> (please do not publish this email address)
	License  : General Public License
	homepage : %%HOMEPAGE

	Nimf is a two (or more) panel filemanager ala Norton Commander for X,
	programmed in C using the Gtk toolkit. It's main goal will be to create
	a full featured file manager which adheres to 'The law of least
	astonishment'.

Table of contents

	1. About Nimf
	2. Current features
	3. Project goals
	4. Installation
	   4.1. Requirements
	   4.2. Compiling
	   4.3. Configuring
	5. Feedback / Contributing.
	   5.1. Credits
	6. Legal stuff
	7. Author

1. About Nimf

	Nimf is a two (or more) panel filemanager like Norton Commander and
	Midnight Commander. It runs in X for it is programmed in C using Gtk.
	It does not require Gnome or anything other than the Gtk developement
	headers. By default it has the same keybindings as Norton Commander has
	(i.e. F5 = Copy, F7 = Create new dir, etc). One of the goals of this
	project is to create an easy to use filemanager, which can do the 
	things that are hard to do at the command prompt. For a full list of
	(current and planned) features, see the 'Project Goals' section.

	This project was started for a couple of different reasons. First of 
	all, it was started due to me being unsatisfied with just about ALL
	filemanagers for Linux. They are either too slow, too huge, too
	good-looking (which can become quite irritating), don't work well with
	the keyboard, are hard to use, etc. The best filemanager yet is, imho,
	emelfm. But even emelfm has some irritations. I could have just taken
	the emelfm source, and modified it to suit my needs ofcourse. But
	another reason for starting this project is because I wanted to program
	something in C using Gtk, and a filemanager seemed like I nice idea. As
	many programmers, I program for fun. Nimf has been (and still is) fun to
	work on.

2. Current features.

	Nimf currently includes these features:

	* Threaded execution of file operations.
	* Dual panel file operations.
	  Two panels which allow you to copy, move, delete, view files, change 
	  rights, change ownership and perform other basic file operations on 
	  files. For a lot of operations confirmation (and destination) dialogs 
	  are presented, so you can i.e. copy the current selection of files to 
	  each dir you enter. Most file-oriented operations (like copy, etc) are 
	  done in threads, so you can continue using the program while the 
	  operation is being performed.
	* Extention based executing
	  You can configure Nimf, so it will allow you to execute programs based
	  on the extention of the file currently under the cursor. 
	* Jump search
	  By typing a (partial) filename, you can jump to the file in the
	  current panel.
	* Bookmarks
	  When pressing the 'B' button in the interface, the current directory
	  will be added to the bookmarks. If it already was bookmarked, it will
	  be removed.
	* Configuration editors for Actions, Misc ('main') and Keys configuration 
	  options.

3. Project goals

	Basic project goals:

	* Full keyboard support.
	  Everything should be easily accessible from the keyboard
	* Configurability
	  Many useless configurable options! Some usefull too.
	* Fast, lightweight
	  Nimf will be fast (both in start up and in operations) and small with
	  few dependencies
	* Adhere to 'The law of least astonishment'
	  If you're a Norton Commander or Midnight Commander user, and you go
	  'huh?' with Nimf, it'll need to be fixed.
	* Extended
	  Nimf will include many usefull options to ease working with it and help
	  manage your files. I'm thinking along the lines of auto-mounting, file
	  splitting, encryption of files, virtual filesystem (accessing tar.gz 
	  files), etc.

	Extended project goals (features):

	* Virtual File System
	  Access from Nimf to packaged files (.zip, .tar.gz, .deb, etc), FTP,
	  Http, etc.
	* File launching
	  Advanced and easy to set up file lauching abilities (i.e. viewing
	  images, running executables, etc) by extention.
	* Quick operations
	  Operations on files which are hard to do from the commandline, like
	  mass-renaming of files, recursive chmodding and chowning, etc
	* Statistics
	  Quickly be able to bring up statistics on free disk space, space
	  occupied by (selections of) files, quota viewing, etc
	* Tree view
	  The ability to bring up a panel with a tree, or make on of the panels
	  contain a tree, which can be used to quickly change directories,
	  copy/move/delete stuff, etc.

4. Installation

4.1. Requirements

	In order to compile Nimf, you will need:

		* A c compiler (Nimf was developed with gcc)
		* Gtk 1.2+ (developement headers)
		* Glib (Gtk depends on it)

		(Debian: libgtk1.2-dev package will do the trick.)

	In order to run Nimf, you will need:

		* Gtk 1.2+

4.2. Compiling

	To compile Nimf, simply run 'make' in the Nimf source directory. Please
	report any errors you get to me.

4.3. Configuring

	Since version 0.0.18, Nimf has a GUI for the settings. Misc, keys and 
	actions no longer have to be edited manually using textfiles. Some changes
	had to be made to the configuration files, therefor you will not be able
	to keep your old configartion files. (also see RELEASENOTES) 

	When configuring commands which will be run (like the Editor and actions),
	you should know that %s will be substituted for the currently selected
	file in the current panel. It's also a good idea to enclose the %s with
	double quotes ("%s"), because the command will be run through a shell, and
	that will clash with any spaces or weird chars in the filename.

	When starting nimf for the first time, a default configuration will be
	saved in your home directory under the .nimf/ dir. 

5. Feedback / Contributing.

	Feedback is always appreciated. At this moment the most welcome feedback
	is:

		* Bug reports
		* Installation problems
		* Code peer reviews (design flaws, code enhancements, etc)

	You can send it to my email address (see the 'Author' section). At this
	moment I'm less interested in feature requests, because the project is
	still in a very early stage. But if you must, you can still send it to
	me.

	If you are thinking about contributing code to this project, please 
	keep the following in mind:

		* Send in patches, created with the appropriate tools (diff).
		* Maintain the current code layout/style, eventhough it's 
		  crappy.
		* Take notice of the projectgoals. Your patch should add
		  features which are planned in the goals, or are at least
		  somewhat along the same lines. So if you send in a patch
		  which will make Nimf into a 3D file manager, I'll probably
		  reject the patch. Bug-fixing patches are almost always
		  welcome.

	I may reject patches because they do not conform with the 'rules' state,
	or for any other reason that I see fit. Please do not be insulted when
	I reject your patch. I will almost always tell you the reason why it was
	rejected.

	If you think about contributing code to Nimf, you might first want to
	send me an email to see if I have any use for what you are thinking of.

	Patches that do not fit in my project goals for Nimf (and may still be
	usefull for others) will be provided in the source package if I see fit.
	
5.1. Credits

    I'd like to thank the following people for their help on Nimf:

	Jaap jan "Aromog" Kerkmeester : Testing, various suggestions.
	Ruben "_Cyclops_" d'Arco      : Testing, various suggestions.
	
6. Legal stuff

	Nimf is Copyright by Ferry Boender, licensed under the General Public
	License (GPL)

	Copyright (C), 2002 by Ferry Boender

	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 of the License, 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 more information, see the COPYING file supplied with this program.

7. Author

	Nimf created by:

		Ferry Boender <%%EMAIL> (Please do not publish this email address)
		Homepage: %%HOMEPAGE
		

	(for address information, please email me. I can't just put my home
	address on the internet now, can I?)