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1.1 root 1: .TH 8½ 1
2: .SH NAME
3: 8½, label, window, wloc \- window system
4: .SH SYNOPSIS
5: .B 8½
6: [
7: .BI "-i '"cmd '
8: ]
9: [
10: .B -s
11: ]
12: [
13: .B -f
14: .I font
15: ]
16: .PP
17: .B label
18: .I name
19: .PP
20: .B window
21: .BI ' "minx miny maxx maxy" '
22: .I cmd
23: .I arg ...
24: .PP
25: .B wloc
26: .SH DESCRIPTION
27: .I 8½
28: manages asynchronous layers of text, or windows, on a bit-mapped display.
29: It also serves a variety of files for communicating with
30: and controlling windows; these are discussed in section
31: .IR 8½ (4).
32: .SS Commands
33: The
34: .I 8½
35: command starts a new instance of the window system.
36: Its
37: .B -i
38: option names a startup script, which typically contains several
39: .I window
40: commands generated by
41: .IR wloc .
42: .PP
43: The
44: .B -s
45: option initializes windows so that text scrolls;
46: the default is not to scroll.
47: The
48: .I font
49: argument names a font used to display text, both in
50: .IR 8½ 's
51: menus
52: and as a default for any programs running in its windows; it also
53: establishes the
54: environment variable
55: .BR $font .
56: If
57: .B -f
58: is not given,
59: .I 8½
60: uses the imported value of
61: .BR $font
62: if set; otherwise it imports the default font from the underlying graphics
63: server, usually the terminal's operating system.
64: .PP
65: The
66: .I label
67: command changes a window's identifying name.
68: .PP
69: The
70: .I window
71: command creates a window.
72: The first argument gives the minimum and maximum screen
73: coordinates of the window to be created (the units are pixels with the
74: upper left corner of the screen at (0, 0)); the rest of the arguments
75: are the command to be run in the window
76: and its arguments.
77: .PP
78: The
79: .I wloc
80: command prints the coordinates and label of each window in its instance of
81: .I 8½
82: and is used to construct arguments for
83: .IR window .
84: .SS Window control
85: Each window behaves as a separate terminal with at least one process
86: associated with it.
87: When a window is created, a new process (usually a shell; see
88: .IR rc (1))
89: is established and bound to the window as a new process group.
90: Initially, each window acts as a simple terminal that displays character text;
91: the standard input and output of its processes
92: are attached to
93: .BR /dev/cons .
94: Other special files, accessible to the processes running in a window,
95: may be used to make the window a more general display.
96: Some of these are mentioned here; the complete set is
97: discussed in
98: .IR 8½ (4).
99: .PP
100: One window is
101: .IR current ,
102: and is highlighted with a heavy border;
103: characters typed on the keyboard are available in the
104: .B /dev/cons
105: file of the process in the current window.
106: Characters written on
107: .B /dev/cons
108: appear asynchronously in the associated window whether or not the window
109: is current.
110: .PP
111: Windows are created, deleted and rearranged using the mouse.
112: Clicking (depressing and releasing) mouse button 1 in a non-current
113: window makes that window current and brings it in front of
114: any windows that happen to be overlapping it.
115: When the mouse cursor points to the background area or is in
116: a window that has not claimed the mouse for its own use,
117: depressing mouse button 3 activates a
118: menu of window operations provided by
119: .IR 8½ .
120: Releasing button 3 then selects an operation.
121: At this point, a gunsight or cross cursor indicates that
122: an operation is pending.
123: The button 3 menu operations are:
124: .TF Reshape
125: .TP
126: .B New
127: Create a window.
128: Depress button 3 where one corner of the new rectangle should
129: appear (cross cursor), and move the mouse, while holding down button 3, to the
130: diagonally opposite corner.
131: Releasing button 3 creates the window, and makes it current.
132: Very small windows may not be created.
133: .TP
134: .B Reshape
135: Change the size and location of a window.
136: First click button 3 in the window to be changed
137: (gunsight cursor).
138: Then sweep out a window as for the
139: .B New
140: operation.
141: The window is made current.
142: .TP
143: .B Move
144: Move a window to another location.
145: After pressing and holding button 3 over the window to be moved (gunsight cursor),
146: indicate the new position by dragging the rectangle to the new location.
147: The window is made current.
148: .TP
149: .B Delete
150: Delete a window. Click in the window to be deleted (gunsight cursor).
151: Deleting a window causes a
152: .L hangup
153: note to be sent to all processes in the window's process group
154: (see
155: .IR notify (2)).
156: .TP
157: .B Hide
158: Hide a window. Click in the window to be hidden (gunsight cursor);
159: it will be moved off-screen.
160: Each hidden window is given a menu entry in the button 3 menu according to the
161: value of the file
162: .BR /dev/label ,
163: which
164: .I 8½
165: maintains
166: (see
167: .IR 8½ (4)).
168: .TP
169: .I label
170: Restore a hidden window.
171: .PD
172: .SS Text windows
173: Characters typed on the keyboard or written to
174: .B /dev/cons
175: collect in the window to form
176: a long, continuous document.
177: .PP
178: There is always some
179: .I selected text\f1,
180: a contiguous string marked on the screen by reversing its color.
181: If the selected text is a null string, it is indicated by a hairline cursor
182: between two characters.
183: The selected text
184: may be edited by mousing and typing.
185: Text is selected by pointing and clicking button 1
186: to make a null-string selection, or by pointing,
187: then sweeping with button 1 depressed.
188: Text may also be selected by double-clicking:
189: just inside a matched delimiter-pair
190: with one of
191: .B {[(<«`'"
192: on the left and
193: .B }])>»`'"
194: on the right, it selects all text within
195: the pair; at the beginning
196: or end of a line, it selects the line; within or at the edge of an alphanumeric word,
197: it selects the word.
198: .PP
199: Characters typed on the keyboard replace the selected text;
200: if this text is not empty, it is placed in a
201: .I snarf buffer
202: common to all windows but distinct from that of
203: .IR sam (1).
204: .PP
205: Programs access the text in the window at a single point
206: maintained automatically by
207: .IR 8½ .
208: The
209: .I output point
210: is the location in the text where the next character written by
211: a program to
212: .B /dev/cons
213: will appear; afterwards, the output point is the null string
214: beyond the new character.
215: The output point is also the location in the text of the next character
216: that will be read (directly from the text in the window,
217: not from an intervening buffer)
218: by a program from
219: .BR /dev/cons .
220: When such a read will occur is, however, under control of
221: .I 8½
222: and the user.
223: .PP
224: In general there is text in the window after the output point,
225: usually placed there by typing but occasionally by the editing
226: operations described below.
227: A pending read of
228: .B /dev/cons
229: will block until the text after the output point contains
230: a newline, whereupon the read may
231: acquire the text, up to and including the newline.
232: After the read, as described above, the output point will be at
233: the beginning of the next line of text.
234: In normal circumstances, therefore, typed text is delivered
235: to programs a line at a time.
236: Changes made by typing or editing before the text is read will not
237: be seen by the program reading it.
238: If the program in the window does not read the terminal,
239: for example if it is a long-running computation, there may
240: accumulate multiple lines of text after the output point;
241: changes made to all this text will be seen when the text
242: is eventually read.
243: This means, for example, that one may edit out newlines in
244: unread text to forestall the associated text being read when
245: the program finishes computing.
246: This behavior is very different from most systems.
247: .PP
248: Even when there are newlines in the output text,
249: .I 8½
250: will not honor reads if the window is in
251: .I hold mode\f1,
252: which is indicated by a white cursor and border.
253: The ESC character toggles hold mode.
254: Some programs, such as
255: .IR mail (1),
256: automatically turn on hold mode to simplify the editing of multi-line text;
257: type ESC when done to allow
258: .I mail
259: to read the text.
260: .PP
261: An EOT character (control-D) behaves exactly like newline except
262: that it is not delivered to a program when read.
263: Thus on an empty line an EOT serves to deliver an end-of-file indication:
264: the read will return zero characters.
265: Like newlines, unread EOTs may be successfully edited out of the text.
266: The BS character (control-H) erases the character before the selected text.
267: The ETB character (control-W) erases any nonalphanumeric characters, then
268: the alphanumeric word just before the selected text.
269: `Alphanumeric' here means non-blanks and non-punctuation.
270: The NAK character (control-U) erases the text after the output point,
271: and not yet read by a program, but not more than one line.
272: All these characters are typed on the keyboard and hence replace
273: the selected text; for example, typing a BS with a word selected
274: places the word in the snarf buffer, removes it from the screen,
275: and erases the character before the word.
276: .PP
277: Text may be moved vertically within the window.
278: A scroll bar on the left of the window shows in its clear portion what fragment of the
279: total output text is visible on the screen, and in its gray part what
280: is above or below view;
281: it measures characters, not lines.
282: Mousing inside the scroll bar moves text:
283: clicking button 1 with the mouse pointing inside the scroll bar
284: brings the line at the top of the
285: window to the cursor's vertical location;
286: button 3 takes the line at the cursor to the top of the window;
287: button 2, treating the scroll bar as a ruler, jumps to the indicated portion
288: of the stored text.
289: Also, a VIEW key (possibly with a different label; see
290: .IR keyboard (6))
291: scrolls forward
292: half a window.
293: .PP
294: The DEL character sends an
295: .L interrupt
296: note to all processes in the window's process group.
297: Alone among characters, the DEL and VIEW
298: keys do not affect the selected text.
299: .PP
300: Normally, written output to a window blocks when
301: the text reaches the end of the screen;
302: a button 2 menu item toggles scrolling.
303: .PP
304: Other editing operations are selected from a menu on button 2.
305: The
306: .B cut
307: operation deletes the selected text
308: from the screen and puts it in the snarf buffer;
309: .B snarf
310: copies the selected text to the buffer without deleting it;
311: .B paste
312: replaces the selected text with the contents of the buffer;
313: and
314: .B send
315: copies the snarf buffer to just after the output point, adding a final newline
316: if missing.
317: .B Paste
318: will sometimes and
319: .B send
320: will always place text after the output point; the text so placed
321: will behave exactly as described above. Therefore when pasting
322: text containing newlines after the output point, it may be prudent
323: to turn on hold mode first.
324: .SS Raw text windows
325: Opening or manipulating certain files served by
326: .IR 8½
327: suppresses some of the services supplied to ordinary text windows.
328: While the file
329: .B /dev/mouse
330: is open, any mouse operations are the responsibility of another program
331: running in the window. Thus,
332: .I 8½
333: refrains from maintaining
334: the scroll bar,
335: supplying text editing or menus, interpreting the
336: VIEW key as a request to scroll, and also turns scrolling on.
337: .PP
338: The file
339: .B /dev/consctl
340: controls interpretation of keyboard input.
341: In particular, a raw mode may be set:
342: in a raw-input window, no typed keyboard characters are special,
343: they are not echoed to the screen, and all are passed
344: to a program immediately upon reading, instead of being gathered into
345: lines.
346: .SS Graphics windows
347: A program that holds
348: .B /dev/mouse
349: and
350: .B /dev/consctl
351: open after putting the console in raw mode
352: has complete control of the window:
353: it interprets all mouse events, gets all keyboard characters,
354: and determines what appears on the screen.
355: .SH FILES
356: .TF /srv/8½.\fIuser\fP.\fIpid\fP
357: .TP
358: .B /lib/font/bit/*
359: font directories
360: .TP
361: .B /mnt/8½
362: Files served by
363: .I 8½
364: (also unioned in
365: .B /dev
366: in a window's name space, before the terminal's real
367: .B /dev
368: files)
369: .TP
370: .B /srv/8½.\fIuser\fP.\fIpid\fP
371: Server end of
372: .IR 8½ .
373: .SH SOURCE
374: .TF /sys/src/cmd/8½
375: .TP
376: .B /sys/src/cmd/8½
377: .TP
378: .B /rc/bin/label
379: .TP
380: .B /rc/bin/window
381: .TP
382: .B /rc/bin/wloc
383: .SH "SEE ALSO"
384: .IR 8½ (4),
385: .IR rc (1),
386: .IR cpu (1),
387: .IR sam (1),
388: .IR mail (1),
389: .IR proof (1),
390: .IR graphics (2),
391: .IR frame (2),
392: .IR layer (2),
393: .IR notify (2),
394: .IR cons (3),
395: .IR bit (3),
396: .IR keyboard (6)
397: .SH BUGS
398: .I Window
399: works only on the machine running
400: .IR 8½ .
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