NAME
pinfo - curses based lynx-style info browser
SYNTAX
pinfo [options] [infopage]
DESCRIPTION
This is a program for viewing info files. You specify which page you
want to read by passing it an infopage argument. This argument contains
the name of an info page (i.e. 'bash'). The program will then (by
default) search for it in the current directory, /usr/share/info,
/usr/info, /usr/local/share/info, /usr/local/info. and /opt/info. The
search path can be adjusted by INFOPATH environment variable or in the
configuration file. Pinfo will also automatically add the suffix
'-info', '-info.Z', '-info.gz', or '-info.bz2'. At present other suf‐
fixes are not recognized, but you can easily add them to the function
openinfo() in filehandlingfunctions.c.
When the search for info pages fails, man is called with the infopage
argument, and it's output is parsed by pinfo. This means that when you
don't have the appropriate info page, but have a man page instead; the
man page will be viewed.
When no infopage is specified, the default `dir' page is shown.
Supported options are
-h, help - print help information and exit.
-v, version - print version information and exit.
-m, manual - uses manual page instead of info by default. (pinfo -m
could be used as a manual pager). Warning: Everything what follows this
option is passed to the `man' program. Don't be confused if pinfo
options, which followed `-m' don't work. When using this option, pinfo
does not parse the info options as usual! It invokes the man part of
program.
You can also call the man function of pinfo in another way. When pinfo
is called with an argv[0] (the program file name), which contains the
word 'man' in it's name, the man functions are enabled automatically.
Previously there was a symlink to pinfo, called pman, but I had to
remove it from the distribution, since it's name was in conflict with
some other utility. Anyway, you can feel free to create such a link if
you wish.
-r, raw-filename - uses a raw filename first (i.e. the name which you
specified as infopage is considered to be a real file in the specified
location).
-f, file synonym for -r.
-a, apropos - if this is set, apropos is called when no man or info
page could be found.
-p, plain-apropos - if this is set, call only apropos.
-c, cut-man-headers - if this is set, man parsing code will try to
cut out the repeated man headers. Use with care. ;)
-s, squeeze-lines- cut empty lines from manual pages. This option
enables auto cutting of every repeated newline in a manual page.
-d, dont-handle-without-tag-table - don't display texinfo pages with‐
out tag table.
-t, force-manual-tag-table- forces manual detection of tag table.
This allows you to view info pages, which may be corrupted. (as i.e.
version of jed's pages, shipped with RH5.0). The tag table corruption
usually appears in that the info links, which you follow, move you to
quite unexpected nodes.
node=nodename, node nodename- Go to the node `nodename' of info
file. Since 0.6.7 it is also possible to specify nodes as in standalone
info via file names, like `(gcc)Introduction'.
rcfile=filename, rcfile filename- Use alternate configuration file.
long-manual-links, -l- Use long link names in manuals. On some sys‐
tems the manual hierarchy is divided into subsections like `3ncurses',
etc, while on other systems all belongs to section `3'. If this option
is what your system is like, feel free to use it.
clear-at-exit, -x- Clear screen at exit.
The options are handled by GNU getopt, so you can here (as in other
programs) abbreviate the option names to the minimal number of charac‐
ters by which the options differ.
Warning! If you do not have getopt, these options will not work!
DEFAULT KEYS WHEN BROWSING INFO FILE
Just take a look at the example configuration file (below), and at the
key descriptions. Keys available in manual viewer differ a bit from the
keys available in info viewer.
ENVIRONMENT
There is a variable $INFOPATH, which can specify the paths to be
searched for info files. It's format is similar to that of the $PATH
variable. An example setting could look like:
/usr/info:/usr/somewhere/info:/not/even/in/usr/info
etc. Directories are separated by colons.
COLOR AND KEY DEFINITIONS
There are configuration files called ~/.pinforc and [prefix]/etc/pin‐
forc, for local and global configuration (where prefix is the prefix of
the directory, where pinfo is installed, i.e. /usr/local, or /).
Here's an example of such a file; we'll discuss the contents below:
# Here are some color setting.
# Whitespace between the entries is optional.
COLNORMAL = COLORWHITE, COLORBLACK, NOBOLD, NOBLINK
COLMENUSELECTED = COLORRED, COLORBLACK, BOLD, NOBLINK
COLMENU=COLORBLUE,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLNOTESELECTED=COLORRED,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLNOTE=COLORGREEN,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLTOPLINE=COLORYELLOW,COLORBLUE,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLBOTTOMLINE=COLORYELLOW,COLORBLUE,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLMANUALBOLD=COLORWHITE,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLMANUALITALIC=COLORWHITE,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLURL=COLORMAGENTA,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
COLURLSELECTED=COLORRED,COLORBLACK,NOBOLD, NOBLINK
COLINFOHIGHLIGHT=COLORWHITE,COLORBLACK,BOLD, NOBLINK
#
# Here are some keybindings as well...
#
KEYTOTALSEARCH1 = 's'
KEYTOTALSEARCH2 = 'S'
KEYSEARCH1 = '/'
KEYSEARCH2 = '.'
KEYGOTO1='g'
KEYGOTO2='m'
KEYHOME1='h'
KEYHOME2='H'
KEYPREVNODE1='p'
KEYPREVNODE2='P'
KEYNEXTNODE1='n'
KEYNEXTNODE2='N'
KEYUP1=KEYUP
KEYUP2='u'
KEYEND1=
KEYEND2='e'
KEYPGDN1=KEYNPAGE
KEYPGDN2=' '
KEYPGDNAUTO1=0
KEYPGDNAUTO2=' '
KEYPGUP1=KEYPPAGE
KEYPGUP2='b'
KEYPGUPAUTO1=0
KEYPGUPAUTO2='b'
KEYDOWN1=KEYDOWN
KEYDOWN2='d'
KEYTOP1=KEYHOME
KEYTOP2='t'
KEYBACK1=KEYLEFT
KEYBACK2='l'
KEYFOLLOWLINK1=KEYRIGHT
KEYFOLLOWLINK2='0
# 12 is a code for ctrl+l
KEYREFRESH1=12
KEYREFRESH2='~'
KEYSHELLFEED1='!'
KEYSHELLFEED2='1'
KEYQUIT1='q'
KEYQUIT2='Q'
KEYDIRPAGE1='d'
KEYDIRPAGE2='D'
KEYGOLINE1='l'
KEYGOLINE2=0
KEYPRINT1=']'
KEYPRINT2=0
#
# Some options, explained in the man page
#
MANUAL=false
CUT-MAN-HEADERS=true
CUT-EMPTY-MAN-LINES=true
RAW-FILENAME=false
APROPOS=false
DONT-HANDLE-WITHOUT-TAG-TABLE=false
LONG-MANUAL-LINKS=false
FILTER-0xB7=true
QUIT-CONFIRMATION=false
QUIT-CONFIRM-DEFAULT=no
CLEAR-SCREEN-AT-EXIT=true
STDERR-REDIRECTION="2> /dev/null"
HTTPVIEWER=lynx
FTPVIEWER=lynx
MAILEDITOR=pine
MANLINKS=1:8:2:3:4:5:6:7:9:n:p:o:3X11:3Xt
INFOPATH=/usr/info:/usr/share/info:/usr/local/info
HIGHLIGHTREGEXP=Bash.*has
SAFE-USER=nobody
SAFE-GROUP=nobody
As you can see, the format is simple. First I'll explain the color def‐
initions. First you must enter a color name (all available color names
are present in the example, and they're self explanatory, I think.
There is also a special color COLORDEFAULT, which stands for trans‐
parency). Then you enter the foreground color, and the background
color. The BOLD attribute means that we want the foreground color to be
highlighted. (i.e. light blue, light green). BLINK attribute is the
blinking attribute, or highlighted background in some other configura‐
tions.
Now let's move to the key definitions. Here we first put a key name
(again all keys are present in the example); then we enter it's value
either surrounded by apostrophes, or a keycode number (like in
KEYREFRESH1), or its mnemonic code name if it's a special key (like
i.e. in KEYFOLLOWLINK1).
If you wish to specify key by code value, use the supplied program
'testkey' to obtain the needed value. It mainly is a feature, when you
want to add some CTRL+letter keybindings, and similar.
For each function you can bind two keys, i.e. you could bind both Enter
and Cursor Right to the FollowLink-function. As you can see in the
example above, the two key names are KEYFOLLOWLINK1 and KEYFOL‐
LOWLINK2.
Here's an explanation of the key names:
KEYTOTALSEARCH1
Key for searching through all nodes of info file.
KEYTOTALSEARCH2
Alternate key for searching through all nodes of info
file.
KEYSEARCH1
Key for searching through current node (or manual).
KEYSEARCH2
Alternate key for searching through current node (or
manual).
KEYSEARCHAGAIN1
Key for repeating the last search.
KEYSEARCHAGAIN2
Alternate key for repeating the last search.
KEYGOTO1
Key for explicitly going to a node (by specifying it's
name).
KEYGOTO2
Alternate key for explicitly going to a node (by spec‐
ifying it's name).
KEYPREVNODE1
Key for going to a node marked as 'Prev' in the
header. In man page viewer this goes to the previous
man section.
KEYPREVNODE2
Alternate key for going to a node marked as 'Prev' in
the header. In man page viewer this goes to the previ‐
ous man section.
KEYNEXTNODE1
Key for going to a node marked as 'Next' in the
header. In man page viewer this goes to the next man
section.
KEYNEXTNODE2
Alternate key for going to a node marked as 'Next' in
the header. In man page viewer this goes to the next
man section.
KEYUP1 Key for scrolling text one line up.
KEYUP2 Alternate key for scrolling text one line up.
KEYEND1 Key for going to the end of the node.
KEYEND2 Alternate key for going to the end of the node.
KEYPGDN1
Key for going one page down in the viewed node.
KEYPGDN2
Alternate key for going one page down in the viewed
node.
KEYPGDNAUTO1
Key for going to the next node when you're at the end
of node (default is zero turned off).
KEYPGDNAUTO2
Alternate key for going to the next node when you're
at the end of node (default is space, as for pgdn2).
KEYHOME1
Key for going to the beginning of the node.
KEYHOME2
Alternate key for going to the beginning of the node.
KEYPGUP1
Key for going one page up in the viewed node.
KEYPGUP2
Alternate key for going one page up in the viewed
node.
KEYPGUPAUTO1
Key for going to the `up' node, when being at the top
of node. (Default value is zero turned off).
KEYPGUPAUTO2
Alternate key for going to the `up' node, when being
at the top of node. (Default value is `-', as for
pgup2).
KEYDOWN1
Key for scrolling the text down one line.
KEYDOWN2
Alternate key for scrolling the text down one line.
KEYTOP1 Key for going to the top (first) node.
KEYTOP2 Alternate key for going to the top (first) node.
KEYBACK1
Key for going back (in the history of viewed nodes).
KEYBACK2
Alternate key for going back (in the history of viewed
nodes).
KEYFOLLOWLINK1
Key for following a hypertext link.
KEYFOLLOWLINK2
Alternate key for following a hypertext link.
KEYREFRESH1
Key for refreshing the screen (hard coded is the ^L
value).
KEYREFRESH2
Alternate key for refreshing the screen.
KEYSHELLFEED1
Key for calling a shell command, and passing the
viewed node to the stdin of that command.
KEYSHELLFEED2
Alternate key for calling a shell command, and passing
the viewed node to the stdin of that command.
KEYQUIT1
Key for exiting the program.
KEYQUIT2
Alternate key for exiting the program.
KEYGOLINE1
Key for going to a specified line in file.
KEYGOLINE2
Alternate key for going to a specified line in file.
KEYPRINT1
Key for printing viewed node or man page.
KEYPRINT2
Alternate key for printing viewed node or man page.
The special mnemonics for keys (which are defined at present) are:
KEYBREAK
KEYDOWN
KEYUP
KEYLEFT
KEYRIGHT
KEYDOWN
KEYHOME
KEYBACKSPACE
KEYNPAGE
KEYPPAGE
KEYEND [Note: this works probably ONLY with Linux ncurses]
KEYF(x)
KEYCTRL('c')
- this assigns the key value to a ctrl+c combination.
c may be any letter you wish.
KEYALT('c')
- this assigns the key value to a alt+c combination. c
may be any letter you wish. If alt key won't work, you
may use ESC+key combination.
'c' - this means a printable character c. The syntax is
just like in C/C++ ;).
[number] - you can also specify key as it's code number. It is
useful e.g. when specifying control keys, and some
nonstandard keys. A numerical value of zero turns
given key binding off.
See manual page for cursgetch (3x) for description of their meaning.
Warning! Try not to create some serious key binding conflicts!
The options in the last part of the example configuration file should
be fairly self-explanatory. The variables that can be set to true or
false do the same things as the command line arguments with the same
names.
MANUAL If this is set to true the default is to first check
for a man page, instead of a texinfo file.
CUT-MAN-HEADERS
If set to true, then pinfo tries to cut off the
repeated headers throughout man pages.
CUT-EMPTY-MAN-LINES
If set to true, then pinfo tries to cut off the
repeated newlines (i.e. it will shorten each set of
consecutive newlines to one newline).
RAW-FILENAME
If set to true, the file argument is taken to be the
name of a file in the current working directory, i.e.
the directories in INFOPATH will only be searched if a
file with this name is not in the working directory.
APROPOS If set to true, apropos is called if no info or man
page is found.
DONT-HANDLE-WITHOUT-TAG-TABLE
If set to true , pinfo will not attempt to display
texinfo pages without tag tables.
HTTPVIEWER
Set this to the program you want to use to follow http
links in documents.
FTPVIEWER Set this to the program you want to use to follow ftp
links in documents.
MAILEDITOR
Set this to your favorite email program, and it will
be started if you follow an email link in a document.
PRINTUTILITY
Utility, which you use for printing. I.e. `lpr'. If
you don't use any, you may also try something like
`cat >/dev/lp1', or sth. ;)
MANLINKS This specifies the section names, which may be refer‐
enced in your man pages (i.e. Xtoolkit man pages match
the section 3Xt (see for example XtVaCreateWidget)
manpage), Xlib function pages match section 3X11, etc.
Such extensions may not be recognized by default, so
it is a good idea to add them).
INFOPATH This allows you to override the default search path
for info pages. The paths should be separated by
colons.
MAN-OPTIONS
This specifies the options, which should be passed to
the `man' program. (see man(1) for description of
what they're like).
STDERR-REDIRECTION
Pinfo allows you to redirect the stderr output of
called programs. For example if you don't want to see
man's error messages about manual page formatting, you
can use STDER-REDIRECTION="2> /dev/null". This is the
default.
LONG-MANUAL-LINKS
This is another true/false option, which decides
whether your system supports long manual section
names, or not. (i.e. "3ncurses" instead of "3").
FILTER-0xB7
This decides, whether you want to convert 0xb7 chars
to `o', or not. For example for iso-8859-2 fonts this
makes man's list marks a bit nicer ;) (look for exam‐
ple at perl's man page, to see how those marks look
like).
QUIT-CONFIRMATION
This decides whether you want to use quit confirmation
on exit, or not.
QUIT-CONFIRM-DEFAULT
This yes/no option determines the default answer to
the QUIT-CONFIRMATION dialog. (default answer is when
you press a key, that does not match the asked ques‐
tion).
CLEAR-SCREEN-AT-EXIT
This true/false option determines if you want to have
your screen cleared at exit, or no.
CALL-READLINE-HISTORY
This true/false option determines if you want to have
a prompt of last history entry whenever calling read‐
line wrapper, eg. in subsequent searches.
HIGHLIGHTREGEXP
This is an option, through which you may pass to pinfo
regexps, which should be highlighted when working with
document. Warning! This may turn very slow if you use
it without care!
SAFE-USER This option is used to pass the name of user, to which
suid when pinfo is run with root privileges.
SAFE-GROUP
This option is used to pass the name of group, to
which suid when pinfo is run with root privileges.
INTERNATIONALIZATION SUPPORT
Pinfo implements general features of gnu gettext library (the thing,
which you need to see national messages ;). But it is not the end.
Pinfo allows you to use national info pages! You only need to put them
to your info directory, into a subdirectory, which is called `$LANG'.
LICENSE
This program is distributed under the terms of GPL.
BUGS
Please send bug reports to the author.
AUTHOR
Przemek Borys
If that E-mail address wont work (since the machine where it is being
handled is a bit damaged lately), you can try pborys@zeus.polsl.gli‐
wice.pl, or pborys@p-soft.silesia.linux.org.pl.
There was also a lot of other people, who contributed to this code. See
the AUTHORS file.
COMMENTS
The author would like to read some comments and suggestions from you,
if any.
01 Dec 2001 PINFO(1)