1999-05-31 Emil Brink Command Options 1. INTRODUCTION As of version 0.11.4, gentoo includes user interface controls for a number of "command options". These options allow you some control over how some of the built-in commands perform their actions, thus allowing you to further customize gentoo's behaviour. 2. COMMAND OPTION DESCRIPTIONS The command options are presented in the main configuration window, on the page labeled "Command Options". The options are organized on one page per command, with a row of tabs allowing you to choose which command to customize. The interface is automatically generated, which is why it currently might look a little less slick than other parts of the GUI (at least to me, it does). The descriptions here are arranged with one section per option page, ordered alphabetically (as are the pages in the actual interface). 2.1 Copy The Copy command has the following options: Preserve Dates During Copy? When set, this boolean option will cause the Copy command to attempt to also copy the access and modification dates of the original file. This is done using the utime(2) system call. Leave Failed Destination if Full Size? Normally, the Copy command will remove the destination file if an error occurs during the copying operation. This option, however, will (when set) cause the Copy command to leave the destination file, if it has the same size as the source file. This is sometimes useful in combination with the above option, since the date setting might fail on some file systems. Buffer Size This lets you set the number of bytes gentoo reads and writes while copying. Setting it to a large value might increase per- formance (since fewer system calls are being done, and more bytes transferred per call), while setting it lower will help conserve memory. The default setting is 256 KB, which seems to give reasonable performance. 2.2 DpFocus The DpFocus has just a single option: Wrap Around at Top and Bottom? When set, this option will cause the focus bar, when moved by "DpFocus prev/next" commands, to wrap around when you try to move it out of the pane. This means that if you're on the top row of a pane, and run "DpFocus prev", you will move to the last row. If, on the other hand, the option was not set, then the commandw would have no effect. 2.3 GetSize The GetSize command has only a single option: Unselect Rows When Done? When set, this option causes the GetSize command to unselect each (directory) row, after it has computed the size for it. This is the default behaviour, and is consistent with the way all other commands in gentoo work. When not set, rows will be left selected. This is somtimes useful, e.g. when issuing a GetSize command in order to determine if for example a Copy will succeed. In these cases it is nice not having to re-select the rows after the sizes has been computed. 2.4 Information The Information command has the following options: Recurse Directories? When set, this option will cause the Information command to "dive" into selected directories, and recursively compute the size of the contents. When set, an extra row (with the label "Contents") will appear in the Information window for each directory. Access, Modify and Change Date Formats These three strings allow you to specify the how the command shall format the dates it display. There are three dates per file, hence the three formatting strings. For information about the syntax for these format strings, see the strftime(3) manual page. The default format used is "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M.%S", which cause the date to appear in the ISO standard format of YYYY-MM-DD, followed by the time in 24-hour notation. 2.5 MkDir The MkDir command has only one option: CD Into New Directory? This boolean, when set, will cause the MkDir command to enter the freshly created directory. This option is also available in the actual MkDir window, for convenience. 2.6 ViewText The ViewText command, and its relatives the ViewHex and ViewTextOrHex commands, have the following options in common (not all are used by all commands): Use mmap() To Speed Loading? This option causes the ViewText command to issue a mmap() system call on the file being viewed. This gives very good performance, both in file viewing and the GTK+ display of the loaded text. The downside is that it might use up a lot of memory, and possibly fail on large files. ViewText will only mmap() files that have a size larger than 0. 0-length files will be opened and read seq- uentially. This is mainly useful for the special files found in the /proc filesystem on Linux, since they have 0 length. Buffer Size This lets you set the size of the read buffer used by the ViewText command when mmap() (see above) is NOT being used. As usual, a large buffer might improve performance, while a small conserves memory. Hex-Check First This option lets you set the number of bytes read (from the start of a file) by the ViewTextOrHex command when it is trying to determine how to view the file. A larger value will improve the accuracy of the decision, but take more time. The default value is 512 bytes.