ANN: 'twander' 2.29 Released
Tim Daneliuk
tundra at tundraware.com
Sat Dec 21 18:10:07 EST 2002
There is now a slightly newer version (2.31) at the same
URL. New since 2.29:
- "Select All" now does not include ".."
- New feature to "Invert Current Selection"
- New feature to "Go To Root Directory"
- Minor documentation cleanup
- Much improved HTML docs
Barring bugs, this should be it for quite awhile.
For those who care, I'm also working on submitting a
FreeBSD port.
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> 'twander' 2.29 is released and available at:
>
> http://www.tundraware.com/Software/twander/
>
> What Is "twander"?
> ------------------
> "twander" is a Filesystem Browser which runs on both Unix-like systems
> as well as Win32 systems. It embraces the best ideas of both similar
> GUI-driven programs (Konqueror, Windows Explorer) as well as
> text-based interfaces (Midnight Commander, List, Sweep).
>
> Why Is "twander" Different?
> ---------------------------
> While the "twander" interface is graphical, all the major navigation,
> selection, and execution commands can be entered from the keyboard,
> not just the mouse. This means Power Users who are strong typists can
> minimize dependency on the mouse and materially speed up their
> interactions with the system.
>
> Moreover, unlike the other programs, "twander" does not have a
> built-in set of commands (which typically cannot be changed).
> Instead, "twander" supports a rich macro configuration language for
> virtually limitless user-definition of commands. The configuration
> language provides a simple mechanism for communicating the list of
> items currently selected in the GUI to the user-defined commands.
>
> Each user is thus free to configure a command set unique and
> appropriate to their needs. As with the navigation commands,
> user-defined commands can be invoked with either the keyboard (a
> single keystroke) or the mouse (a menu selection).
>
>
> Who Might Like "twander"?
> ------------------------
> 1) People who type well and find the mouse a distraction when working.
>
> 2) People who want to customize the commands available in their file
> browser to do things *their* way instead of the way the browser
> wants to do things.
>
> 3) People who wish to provide their less technical colleagues with a
> tool that has a limited set of "canned" features. For instance, it
> would be trivial to use "twander" to automate ftp transfers for use
> by non-technical administrative staff.
>
> 4) People interested in the inner workings of a Python/Tkinter
> program. The entire program is written in Python using the Tkinter
> GUI modules and is extensively commented throughout. Additional
> program documentation is provided in Unix 'man' format, PostScript,
> html, and plain text.
>
> 5) Oddly, and as an unintended side-effect of the original design,
> "twander" will serve the visually-impaired very well. Colors, font
> type, size, & weight, and window size can all be trivially set on
> the "twander" command line. So, for instance, it is quite easy to
> run the program with very large fonts, thus improving readability.
>
>
> Program Requirements
> --------------------
> "twander" runs on Unix-like systems (FreeBSD, Linux) as well as a
> variety of Win32 systems. It requires the presence of Python 2.2
> (or later) and the associated Tkinter support for the target
> system. These are freely available from:
>
> http://www.python.org
>
--
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Tim Daneliuk
tundra at tundraware.com
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