The meaning of the characteristics is exactly the same as for the ls command. xbrowser displays the file type, the access rights, the number of links, the owner, the file size in bytes, the last modification date and the file name. This window allows the user only to select one or several lines; individual characters cannot be selected.
A single click of the left mouse button selects one line. The selection of files may be extended by using the right mouse button. The selected files can be de-selected by hitting a character generating key (no modifier keys) of the keyboard or by clicking the middle button of the mouse. A double click on a line is a shortcut for selecting a file and invoking explicitly the commands List or View/Edit. If the double-clicked file is a directory the List command is executed; otherwise the command View/Edit is executed (if the resource ViewEdit is set to "true" xbrowser invokes the desired editor rather than xmore).
A double click on a line is a shortcut for selecting a file and invoking explicitly the command View/Edit (if the resource ViewEdit is set to "true" xbrowser invokes the desired editor rather than xmore).
Pressing the left mouse button sorts the files in the ascending order of the current sorting option (e.g. starting from A to z in case of file names). If the middle button is pressed xbrowser applies the current sorting option, but in reverse order. If the right button is pressed, an option menu is displayed for choosing the current sorting option, the option to display owner or group associated with the file, and the option to print files starting with a dot or not. The files may be sorted by file name, file size or date (in ascending or descending order depending if the left or the middle button is pressed). If an option is selected it is displayed in reverse video.
For each viewer or editor instance a new process and a new X window is created. If the favourite text editor is vi the environment variable XEDITOR must be set to "xterm -e vi" (which assures the creation of a new X window). The cursor is always positioned at the beginning of the file.
The Search Commands also include an View/Edit command (left button for viewer; middle button for editor). It works on selections in the Grep Window rather than selections in the File Window. If the preferred viewer/editor supports line number selection from the command line, such as jhsxedit, emacs or vi, then the cursor of the viewer/editor is positioned at that line of the file which corresponds to the grep match displayed in the grep window. Otherwise the cursor is positioned at the beginning of the file. xmore and xedit do not support line positioning.
For both View/Edit commands the created windows are not deleted when the user quits xbrowser. The user must close all windows separately.
If the left mouse button is pressed, xbrowser displayes a dialog box in which the user may type a shell command (note the execution uses sh rather then csh; certain special characters, such as ~ are not valid for sh). If the user selected one or several files in the File Window, their names are displayed in the dialog box. The dialog window also displays 2 options: Return Ouput and Return Diagnostics. In the first case the standard output generated by the shell command is displayed in the Message window (if the information consists only of a few lines) or in a separate popup window; in the second case the standard error information is returned to the user. Both buttons are toggles and the user may enable/disable them. If an option is selected, it is displayed in reverse video. If the user disables both options, messages are displayed in the xterm startup window. The user must quit the popup window, before he/she may invoke new commands in xbrowser.
If the middle button is pressed a new xterm window is created inheriting the current working directory of xbrowser. If the user quits xbrowser, xterm windows are not deleted. They must be closed separately.
Clicking the left mouse button continues until all files which match the file pattern are searched. Clicking the middle button stops searching at the first file which contains a match for the string to be searched.
Clicking the right button displays a dialog window which allows the user to specify the search behavior in case Grep encounters a directory. The user may skip all directories (this is the default) that means only files selected in the File Window are searched. The user may select the option "search next-level directory" which specifies that all directories which are selected in the File Window are searched, i.e. files in these directories whose file names satisfy the pattern in the File Pattern Box. The last option allows the user to recursively search all directories which are encountered. Grep for this option may take a long time (depending on the size of the underlying directory structure). The file pattern in the File Pattern Box is only interpreted for the files which are actually searched for the string pattern. It is not a selection criteria for directory names.
The dialog window for Grep also supports a toggle for case-sensitive or case insensitive search. The default setting is case-sensitive.
If you use the window manager twm, your .twmrc must set NoTitleFocus otherwise the dialog boxes and the text windows do not work correctly. There is a bug in twm.