1README for XCruiser (version 0.3) 2$Id: README,v 1.1.1.1.2.2 2003/01/26 18:29:18 euske Exp $ 3 4 XCruiser - a filesystem visualization utility 5 Copyright (C) 1999-2003 Yusuke Shinyama <yusuke at cs . nyu . edu> 6 7 8WHAT IS IT? 9 10XCruiser (formerly known as XCruise) is a filesystem visualization 11utility which compares a filesystem to a 3D-formed universe and 12allows you to "cruise" within it. It constructs a universe from 13directory trees, and you can navigate with a mouse. 14 15Here are simple analogies. Every file in a filesystem is shown as 16"a planet" with a solid circle. Similarly directories are 17"galaxies" (hollow rings) and symbolic links are "wormholes" 18(green curves). Unlike the real universe, a directory can contain 19subdirectories inside, which forms a hierarchical filesystem. The 20radius of each star is determined by its mass (i.e. filesize) and 21the position is determined by its name. Closer names are placed 22closer to each other. Shorter filenames are placed closer to the 23center of the galaxy. 24 25 26OPERATIONS 27 28You have one main window. Planets are shown as solid circles in 29warm colors. Galaxies are cyan or white, and wormholes are 30green. The program also displays the current velocity and the name 31of current galaxy where your ship is in. The current direction is 32indicated in revolving green meters around the center of the 33screen. You can move the white cross cursor with a 34mouse. Unreadable files or directories appear in magenta. 35 36There're two types of flying mode, which appears at the next to 37the velocity at the top left of the screen as a letter "P" (Polar) 38and "C" (Cartesian). In polar flying mode, you can change your 39direction with a mouse and drive forward with the left button. In 40Cartesian flying mode in contrast, your ship moves in parallel 41without changing the direction. When you reach close enough to a 42galaxy, the ship "enters" the galaxy and slows down. Outer stars 43are displayed in darker colors. 44 45Default controls: 46 47 Left button: Accelerate forward. 48 Middle button: Open the file (incompletely implemented). 49 Right button: Accelerate backward. 50 Z: Reposition the ship. 51 X: Change the flying mode. 52 V: View/hide the information. 53 M: View/hide the direction indicators. 54 Return or O: Open the file. 55 F: Freeze the ship. 56 Q: Quit the program. 57 Space: Accelerate forward. 58 Cursor keys: Move the cursor. 59 (You need to turn off auto key repeating when you're using keyboards.) 60 61 62OPTIONS 63 64 -display dpy Specifies an X server to connect. 65 -background color Background color. 66 -geometry geom Window geometry. 67 68Other options are configurable as X resources. 69See XCruiser.ad for details. 70 71 72A DOCTOR'S WARNING 73 74Please take care of motion sickness. (I'm not joking!) 75 76 77HISTORY 78 79I developed XCruiser (XCruise) when I was a junior student in 80university. At that time I was inspired by the idea by a certain 81professor that tree-like filesystems are not necessarily 82appropriate to us, since we sometime remember objects with spatial 83hints. First I developed this on my Macintosh SE/30, and then 84ported to X11 with a monochrome terminal. Hope that this program 85give some idea to those who're developing user interfaces. 86 87 88LICENSE 89 90XCruiser comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. 91This program is distributed under the GNU General Public License. 92 93 94AUTHOR 95 96Yusuke Shinyama 97Contact: yusuke at cs . nyu . edu 98http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/ 99