LOOKAT(1)

NAME

lookat - Un*x file viewer

SYNOPSIS
lookat [ --help ] [ filename ] [ dir_name ]

DESCRIPTION

"lookat" (or "bekijk" in the Dutch version) is a program to view Un*x text files and manual pages.

Under DOS I used list.com to view text files. I didn't find such a program under my favorite OS, GNU/Linux. The standard Un*x utilities ( more, less, view ...) weren't userfriendly enough. For this reason I created "lookat".

OPTIONS

--help
    This option displays a help text.

file_name
    view file_name

dir_name
    change the current directory to dir_name

BUGS

None known yet, when you find one you let me know :-)

USAGE

There are four ways to start lookat :

* by just typing 'lookat', after the program is started you can select the file you want to view.

if there is already data on stdin, lookat will read the from stdin, and display the contents of stdin

example:

    ls | lookat

* type 'lookat dir_name', change the current directory to dir_name. When the program is started you can select the file you want to view.

* by typing 'lookat <filename>', the file with <filename> will automatically be loaded.

* in combination with "man"

examples :

    man -Plookat ls
    export PAGER=lookat; man ls

If you like "lookat" as your manual page viewer you can put the next lines in your /etc/profile

    alias man="man -Plookat"

After you have loaded a file, the following keys can be used:

Keys:

       <-, C-b : move left / back
       ->, C-f : move right / forward
       arrow up, C-p : move up / previous line
       arrow down, C-n : move down / next line
       PgUp, u : move up a screen
       PgDwn, d : move down a screen
       HOME : go to the beginning of a line
       END : go to the end of a line
       o : open a new file
       t,< : go to top (start of file)
       b,e,> : go to the last line (end of file)
       g : go to a line number
       /,z,s,f : search for a string
       F3, n, c, v, : continue search
       F9 : menu
       ALT+f : file menu
       ALT+g : go menu
       ALT+s : search menu
       ALT+h : help menu
       F10,ESC,q : quit program
       F1,h,? : view this help file
       r : rebuild screen

When you press F9 you get access to the pull-down menus, most of the functions are also available through the keyboard (see above).

File|Open or 'o':

    When you select this function you get a window, at the left side of the window you get the files of the current directory. By selecting a file it will be loaded. At the right size of the window you see the directories, by pressing the TAB key you are able to switch between the file and the directory selection. By selecting a directory with ENTER you change the current directory. With the ESC key you cancel the file open operation.

File|Quit or 'F10,ESC,q':

    Quit program.

Go|to begin or 'b':

    Move to the first line of the file.

Go|to end or 'e':

    Move to the last line of the file.

Go|to line or 'g':

    With this function you are able to move to a certain line number. After you have selected this function you get a window which asks you to give a line number. With ESC you cancel the operation, by pressing the TAB key you can use the [ OK ] and [ Cancel ] buttons.

Go|to end of a line or 'END':

    Move to the end of a line.

Go|to the beginning of a line or 'HOME':

    Move to the beginning of a line.

Search|for a string or '/,z,s,f'

    With this function you can search for a string in the file. The searching will start from the current line (the first line on the screen) to the last line in the file. After you select this function you will see a window which asks you to give a string. The searching can been done on two ways, with or without case sensitivity. By pressing the TAB key you can select -with SPACE or ENTER- how to search at

        [ ] Case sensitive

    With the TAB key you are also able to use the [ OK ] and [ Cancel ] buttons.

Search|from beginning of the file

    See above, the searching will start from the first line.

Search|Again or 'F3'

    Search for the last string again.

Options|cursor

    Turn the cursor on/off

Options|give notice

    Notice on exit on/off

Options|types

    Add, delete, modify types

Options|colors

    Modify the colors

Options|Save options

    Save the options to your cfg file ($HOME/.lookat)

Help|See help file or 'F1,h,?'

    View this help file.

Help|Keys ...

    Shows a list with the keys you can use in "lookat".

Help|About

    Shows information about the program (version ,etc.).

CONFIGURATION

Note:

    The format of the configuration file has changed, please remove the "=" sign. The old configuration files will still work, but may not be supported in the future.

lookat uses two configuration files a global configuration file ( /etc/lookat.conf ) and a user configuration file ( $HOME/.lookat ) if the user's configuration file exists the global is ignored.

If the configuration files aren't available the defaults are used.

CONFIGURATION DIRECTIVES

cursor  on|off

    turn the cursor on / off

give_notice  on|of

    give notice on exit on / off

.[extension] "external cmd"

    create a new type

    If a filename matches a type the external command will be used to open the file. A typical usage are gzipped files:

       .gz "gzip -cd"

    The type order is important lookat will compare the filename with the types starting with the first type and continues until a type matches a filename.

    So if you want to define a type for ".gz" and ".tar.gz" files you have to put the .tar.gz type first.

color object foreground background [ attribute ]

    If your terminal supports colors, this directive can be use to modify the color of certain objects. Valid objects are: view, view_bold, view_italic, main_menu, main_menusel, main_menuhot, main_menuhotsel, status_bar, win1, win1_edit, win1_menu, win1_menusel, win1_menuhot, win1_menuhotsel, win2, win2_edit, win2_menu, win2_menusel, win2_menuhot, win2_menuhotsel, view_found.

    Valid colors are: white, black, green, magenta, blue, cyan, yellow, red.

    Valid attributes are: normal, bold, underline, reverse, and standout.

mono object foreground_attribute [ background_attribute ]

    If your terminal doesn't support color, you can still assign foreground and background attributes to certain objects.

THANKS TO ...

Free Software Foundation inc.

    The GNU C Library Reference Manual by Sandra Loosemore And of course for gcc, make, bash, grep, man, ls, cp, tar, gzip, emacs, less, ..., and more :-)

Sven Golt, Sven van der Meer, Scott Burkett, Matt Welsh

    From the Linux Documentation Project for their Linux Programmer's Guide.

Linus, and others ...

    for Linux of course ;-)

Jan Wagemakers

    For his debugging & to place "see" on his Webpage. You can find more information about Linux and Assembly on his Webpage : http://www.janw.easynet.be

Roel Diederen

    To create the man page for see 1.1

Aubin Paul

    Aubin created the Mac OSX patch, this made it a lot easier to port "lookat" to other platform than GNU/Linux.

Jim W. Jaszewski

    Corrected some typos in the manpage.

Kevin Keegan

    For reporting his installation problem on SCO OpenServer box, and to provide pre-compiled binaries for SCO Unix.

All Free software programmers (on any computer system)

And everyone I had forgot to mention :-{

LAST WORDS ...

When you find "lookat" useful (or useless), have suggestions, find a bug :-( you may let me know.

AUTHOR
V1.4.0 Staf Wagemakers

homepage : http://www.wagemakers.be
email : staf@wagemakers.be

COPYRIGHT

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.