DirWin

Version 0.7.x, May 2011

Command-line Options
Command-line Input Field
Main Menu Commands
Keyboard Shortcuts
Moving and Copying Files
Managing Filetypes and Associations with Programs
Special Configuration Options
Quirks and Tricks

Introduction

DirWin is a window that shows you the contents of one directory and lets you perform certain functions on those files. DirWin uses the FLTK user interface library, which makes it especially efficient on TinyCore Linux. The source code of DirWin is released under the GNU license. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ for more details.

CAUTION: Use carefully and at your own risk! DirWin 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 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ for more details. Please provide feedback on bugs, quirks, and improvement suggestions so it can be made better.

Command-Line Options

DirWin has no unique command-line options at this time. It does accept the FLTK-standard command-line options to override application colors and so forth. You many see a brief list of the these FLTK-standard options by passing an invalid option such as --? on the command line. You may pass an initial directory as an argument to Dirwin:
   dirwin /path/to/my/intial/dir

Command-Line Input Field

DirWin will perform the command-line entered in the Cmd input field when you press enter or click the "Do Cmd" button. This field is automatically filled when you select a file with the first defined application association based on the file type. If DirWin cannot identify the file as a specific type, the first generic association is used as the command line. (See Managing Filetypes and Associations with Programs for more info on associating file types with applications. If you double-click a file in the list, the command-line is automatically executed. If you single-click on a file, you may edit the command line in the Cmd field before you press enter or click on "Do Cmd".

Main Menu Commands

Jump to...Home: Ctrl+Shift+Home, Change to the user's home ($HOME) directory, normally /home/tc.

Jump to...Start Dir: Ctrl+Shift+S, Change back to the initial directory of this session of DirWin.

Jump to.../mnt: Ctrl+Shift+M, Change to /mnt directory.

Jump to.../opt: Ctrl+Shift+O, Change to /mnt directory.

Jump to.../tmp: Ctrl+Shift+T, Change to /tmp directory.

Jump to...TCE Dir: Ctrl+Shift+E, Change to TinyCore Extensions, TCE, directory.

Open terminal here: Alt+T, Open a terminal (fixed as "aterm" now) window with the current path set to the directory highlighted in the directory tree window.

Create directory: Ctrl+D key, Create a new subdirectory under the current directory, using the name entered in a prompt window.

Refresh: F5, Reloads the window with the current contents of the current directory.

About: F10, Displays "About" copyright, summary, and license info.

Help: F1, Displays this help file.

Quit: Ctrl+Q, Quit DirWin.

Rename: F2, Places a "mv" (move which also will rename the file) in the Cmd input field along with the name of the selected file. Type the new name after the existing name, then press the Enter key or click the 'Do Cmd' button to commit them.

Delete: Delete key, Delete selected item or items. If the "ConfirmDelete" configuration is set to 1 in the .dirwin.conf file, the user will be prompted to confirm the delete operation.

Copy: Ctrl+C, Make a note of the currently selected files for use with later commands.

Paste: Ctrl+P, If one or more files are already "copied" for pasting, the Paste command will put a copy into the current directory.

View Text: Ctrl+1, View the contents of the file as a text file in the exeuctable 'editor' in read-only mode. If the file is not a text format file, this command may not provide an intelligible display.

Edit Text: Ctrl+2, View the contents of the file as a text file in the exeuctable 'editor' in read-only mode.

(Additional associated programs for all files) Ctrl+n, where 'n' is 2, 3, ... Launch associated app as defined in the .dirwin.conf file.

(Additional associated programs for specific file type) Alt+n, where 'n' is 1, 2, ... Launch associated app as defined in the .dirwin.conf file, where the type is impled by the extension (end portion of the filename).

Keyboard Shortcuts

F1        Open this help document
F2        Rename current selected file
F5        Refresh window conetents
F10        Show "About DirWin" window
Delete        Delete file(s) or directory
Alt + T        Open a terminal window at the current directory
Ctrl + C        "Copy." Well, really just remember the selected files for Paste later.
Ctrl + V        "Paste." Well, really just duplicate files remembered from "Copy"
Ctrl + Backspace        Go to parent directory (toward root)
Ctrl + Shift + Home        Jump to $HOME directory
Ctrl + Shift + S        Jump (back) to initial directory of this instance of DirWin
Ctrl + Shift + M        Jump /mnt (file mounts) directory
Ctrl + Shift + O        Jump /opt option configuration directory
Ctrl + Shift + T        Jump /tmp temporary file directory
Ctrl + Shift + E        Jump to Tiny Core Extensions (TCE) directory

Moving and Copying Files

There are two main ways to move or copy files in DirWin:

  1. Drag-and-Drop: Open two instances of DirWin and navigate one of them to the source directory and the other to the destination directory; select one or more files in source directory, then drag the item (or items) to the other instance of DirWin showing the destination directory; a confirmation dialog will pop up and help the user copy, move, and/or cancel
  2. Copy / Paste: select one or more files, use the Ctrl+C "Copy" keystroke combo or select "Copy" from the menu, navigate to the destination directory, and finally use the Ctrl+V "Paste" keystroke combo or click on the "Paste" command in the menu.

Managing Filetypes and Associations with Programs

DirWin has a simple way to define file types and programs that should be associated with each type. File types are distinguished by the final letters of the filename, which often contain an "extension" consisting of a period and a short word or abbreviation, such as .png for Portable Network Graphics image files, .cpp for C++ programming source code files, and .sh for shell script files. In the .dirwin.conf file, there are multple lines that define the file name extension to match, a friendly label for the file type that will appear next to the name in the directory contents view, a friendly label for the associated program command, and the specification of the command itself. For example, the following association definition for shell script files allows us to easily "Run" a selected file whose name ends in '.sh' as a shell script in an aterm window:

.sh,script,Run,aterm -e ./%s &

Note that there are no spaces around the commas above, and that the '%s' will be replaced by the name of the currently selected item or items. Any association made with the wildcard "*" extension pattern will be available to files of all types. For example, the "View Text" and "Edit Text" associations are pre-defined with:

*,file,View Text,editor -R %s &
*,file,Edit Text,editor %s &

The first association for a specific file type will be the first in the menu and will also be the association that is used when the user double-clicks the file, except for directories (which causes a change to that directory) and executables (which will launch them).

Special Configuration Options

Here is a .DirWin.conf setting that is not exposed in the GUI:
ConfirmDelete        Whether DirWin will request user to confirm all delete operations (1 = yes: confirm delete operations, 0 = don't)
      

Quirks and Tricks

To easily select multiple files, you may "sweep" over right-side file list using the normal left-click-and-drag gesture, but in the non-name columns. As in several other file managers, you may also shift-click to extend a selection range, or ctrl-click to toggle the selection of individual files.

DirWin will try to utilize the window managers's color scheme and display something legible for reasonable combinations of foreground and background colors. However, some combinations of colors will not be usable. DirWin will utilize the window manager's FLTK window style setting, which can currently be one of "none" (Windows 95 style), "gtk+", or "plastic" (Mac OS Aqua style).

Some filesystes for mountable media such as FAT32 USB memory sticks support upper and lower case letters in filenames in a limited way, so the underlying Linux file management commands used by DirWin may not allow you to successfully rename a file if the only difference is capitalization. For example, if you try to rename myfile to MyFile on a USB Stick, it will not work for certain filesystem format types. However, you may change the name in two steps: myfile --> myfile1, then myfile1 --> MyFile.

Support

Post bug reports and suggestions to the Tiny Core Linux Forum
(http://tinycorelinux.com/forum/).

Michael A. Losh