InfView documentation for Version 0.2.7

First time I used the info viewer from GNU I really hated it. I don't doubt that info is a powerful browser, but isn't so easy to use. The interface is unclear and isn't intuitive at all.

My first solution was to create a converter to translate the info files to the Norton Guides format. The program can be found in SimTelnet, but the problem is that this format have some limitations and you need a browser for it. Even when there are shareware browsers that's a problem.

So my next attempt was to make a browser like the one used by the Turbo Vision library. And the result was InfView. InfView provides a very easy to use interface without loosing power.

The main features of InfView are:

Free cursor movement with the keyboard arrows, page-up, etc.
Mouse support.
Highlighted cross references.
Hide of the *Note and other confusing things of the info format.
Previous, Next and Up node support.
History support.
Incremental search just typing the first letters of the cross reference.
The same for the whole nodes list.
Support for compressed info files. See compressed files .
Search in the current node, the whole file or all the files.
Bookmarks.
History of the last 40 nodes visited.
Dialog to browse the files on disk.
and more

2 How to use InfView

Available Keys:

Key	Action
Arrows	Moves the cursor. Holding shift selects the text.
Page Up	Previous page of the topic. Holding shift selects the text.
Page Down	Next page of the topic. Holding shift selects the text.
Home	Move cursor to the first column. Holding shift selects the text.
End	Move cursor to the last character in the line. Holding shift selects the text.
Ctrl+Right arrow	Next word. Holding shift selects the text.
Ctrl+Left arrow	Previous word. Holding shift selects the text.
Tab	Move to the next link (from the cursor position).
Shift+Tab	Move to the previous link (from the cursor position).
Alt+F1	Go to the last viewed topic.
Ctrl+s	Search .
Ctrl+l	Repeat the last search.
Alt+F10	InfView control . dialog window.
Ctrl+p	Go to the "previous" link.
Ctrl+n	Go to the "next" link.
Ctrl+u	Go to the "up" link.
Ctrl+t	Go to the "top" link.
Ctrl+d	Go to the directory.
Ctrl+h	This help.
Ctrl+g	GoTo .
Ctrl+o	Jump to node .
Alt+b	Goes to the Bookmarks . dialog.
Ctrl+f	Goes to the Configuration . dialog.
Alt+i	Copies the include name to the clipboard (for the libc help).
1-9	Take the link 1 to 9.
0	Take the last link available in that topic.
a-z A-Z	Select the next link that starts with this letter. The editor uses an incremental search so you can type various letters until you reach the desired item

Jumping to any file or node

Jumping to any node in the current file

2.1 Jumping to any file or node

Go To Window:

You must enter the exact name of the topic that you want in the following format:

     (file)node

For example: (libc)printf will go to the printf help.

2.2 Jumping to any node in the current file

This option will show you a window with all the nodes available in the current help file. You'll be able to select any of them and pressing ENTER you'll jump to that node.

The names are alphabetically sorted and pressing the first letters of the name of the node you'll be guided to the desired node.

2.3 Control dialog

This dialog controls the navigation in InfView. The dialog contains the following buttons:

Button	Action
Next	Moves to the next node in the help
Previous	Moves to the previous node in the help
Up	Moves one node up in the help's hierarchy
Prev. Hist.	Goes to the previously visited node
Nodes List	Shows a list of all the nodes to choose one
Bookmarks	Goes to the Bookmarks . dialog
Configuration	Goes to the Configuration . dialog
Open Info	Opens a dialog to browse the disk and choose any file to load
Hide	Hides the control dialog

Additionally the dialog contains a list with the last 40 nodes visited, you can choose any of them with the mouse of the cursors.

2.4 Bookmarks dialog

This dialog allows to save the names of the nodes that you use frequently. You can save as many node positions as you want and they will be restored next time you run the editor. The marks can be deleted from this window too.

2.5 Configuration dialog

This dialog configures how InfView shows the text in screen.

Currently there are two settings:

Hide '*Note' word: It hides the note tag used make makeinfo to indicate a cross reference.
Hide real link name: It makes visible only the comment about the node and no the real name of the node.

By default both are enabled and gives a cleaner text.

2.6 Searching

InfView have various search options, these options are grouped in two sections. The first indicates how the search will be make:

Case sensitive: Makes the search sensitive to the upper/lower case characters.
Whole words only: Force to match only if the whole word matchs.

The second indicates where to search:

In current topic: Only in the text of the current node.
In the file: In all the nodes of the current help file.
In all files: In all the files located in the INFO directory.

3 Compressed files

InfView supports compressed info files. For that they must have one of the following extentions igz, gz, info.gz or inz. Additionally they must be compressed with GNU's gzip and gzip must be installed in your system and in your search path.

Compressing the files under Linux or Windows 95 (with LFN=Y) is relative easy because you only need to compress the files and they will have the gz extention added. Under plain DOS is a little harder because a file called file.i10 will become file.i1z and will have the same name as a compressed file that had the following name file.i1. To fix that you must first rename the files to have the following format: file.nn. Then you must edit the first file to fix the Indirect table to reflect the changes.

4 About the Author

InfView was made by Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET), with the help of Robert Höhne.

     E-Mail: Salvador Eduardo Tropea
     
     Telephone: (+5411) 4759-0013
     Postal Address:
     Salvador E. Tropea
     Curapaligüe 2124
     (1678) Caseros - 3 de Febrero
     Prov: Buenos Aires
     Argentina

5 Greetings

To all the people who have contributed with DJGPP and GNU projects.
Specially to:
- DJ Delorie (DJGPP's motor).
- Robert Höhne (RHIDE).
- Eli Zaretskii (FAQ's maintainer and djgpp patchman).
- Charles Sandsman (CWSDPMI's author).
- Laszlo Molnar (UPX's author sorry ML for the reverse order ;-).
- Marek Habersack (don't worry the position was random).
To all the people of DJGPP's list.