xcruiser(6)

NAME

xcruiser - a filesystem visualization utility

SYNTAX

xcruiser [ -display dpy ] [ -background color ] [

-geometry geom ]

DESCRIPTION

XCruiser (formerly known as XCruise) is a filesystem visu

alization utility which compares a filesystem to a 3D-formed uni

verse and allows you to "cruise" within it. It constructs a uni

verse 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" (hollow rings) and symbolic links are "wormholes"

(green curves). Unlike the real universe, a directory can con

tain subdirectories inside, which forms a hierarchical filesys

tem. 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 cir

cles in warm colors. Galaxies are cyan or white, and wormholes

are green. The program also displays the current velocity and the

name of current galaxy where your ship is in. The current direc

tion is indicated in revolving green meters around the center of

the screen. You can move the white cross cursor with a mouse. Un

readable files or directories appear in magenta.

There are two types of flying mode, which appear next to

the velocity at the top left of the screen as a letter "P" (Po

lar) or "C" (Cartesian). In polar flying mode, you can change

your direction with a mouse and drive forward with the left but

ton. 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 (incompletely implemented).
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 keyboards.)

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 university. At that time I was inspired by the idea by a cer

tain professor that tree-like filesystems are not necessarily ap

propriate 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 terminal. Hope that this program

gives some idea to those who're developing user interfaces.

LICENSE

XCruiser comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This program

is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

AUTHOR

Yusuke Shinyama (yusuke at cs . nyu . edu)

http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/

February 2003

XCRUISER(6)