XCRUISER(1)XCRUISER(1)NAMExcruiser - a filesystem visualization utility
SYNTAXxcruiser [ -display dpy ] [ -background color ] [ -geometry geom ]
DESCRIPTION
XCruiser is a filesystem visualization utility which compares a
filesystem to a 3D-formed universe and allows you to "cruise" within
it. It constructs a universe from directory trees, and you can navigate
with a mouse.
Here are simple analogies. Every file in a filesystem is shown as "a
planet" with a solid circle. Similarly directories are "galaxies" (hol‐
low rings) and symbolic links are "wormholes" (green curves). Unlike
the real universe, a directory can contain subdirectories inside, which
forms a hierarchical filesystem. The radius of each star is determined
by its mass (i.e. filesize) and the position is determined by its name.
Closer names are placed closer to each other. Shorter filenames are
placed closer to the center of the galaxy.
OPERATIONS
You have one main window. Planets are shown as solid circles in warm
colors. Galaxies are cyan or white, and wormholes are green. The pro‐
gram also displays the current velocity and the name of current galaxy
where your ship is in. The current direction is indicated in revolving
green meters around the center of the screen. You can move the white
cross cursor with a mouse. Unreadable files or directories appear in
magenta.
There're two types of flying mode, which appears at the next to the
velocity at the top left of the screen as a letter "P" (Polar) and "C"
(Cartesian). In polar flying mode, you can change your direction with
a mouse and drive forward with the left button. In Cartesian flying
mode in contrast, your ship moves in parallel without changing the
direction. When you reach close enough to a galaxy, the ship "enters"
the galaxy and slows down. Outer stars are displayed in darker colors.
CONTROLS
Left button: Accelerate forward.
Middle button: Open the file (incompletely implemented).
Right button: Accelerate backward.
Z: Reposition the ship.
X: Change the flying mode.
V: View/hide the information.
M: View/hide the direction indicators.
Return or O: Open the file.
F: Freeze the ship.
Q: Quit the program.
Space: Accelerate forward.
Cursor keys: Move the cursor.
(You need to turn off auto key repeating when you're using key‐
boards.)
OPTIONS-display dpy
Specifies an X display name.
-background color
Background color.
-geometry geom
Window geometry.
Other options are configurable as X resources. See XCruiser.ad for
details.
A DOCTOR'S WARNING
Please take care of motion sickness. (I'm not joking!)
HISTORY
I developed XCruiser (XCruise) when I was a junior student in univer‐
sity. At that time I was inspired by the idea by a certain professor
that tree-like filesystems are not necessarily appropriate to us, since
we sometime remember objects with spatial hints. First I developed this
on my Macintosh SE/30, and then ported to X11 with a monochrome termi‐
nal. Hope that this program give some idea to those who're developing
user interfaces.
LICENSE
XCruiser comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This program is distrib‐
uted under the GNU General Public License.
AUTHOR
Yusuke Shinyama (yusuke at cs . nyu . edu)
http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/
February 2003 XCRUISER(1)
