Contents

Introduction

Bronco is a Qt-based, two-pane file manager. It has a directory tree on the left and a directory listing on the right. It allows you to do all common file management tasks, copying, moving, deleting, searching, and more.

Design goals:

• Quick file system navigation
• Make features accessable from the keyboard

Bronco is not (and never will be):

• A desktop environment
• An ftp, http, or email client
• An operating system

File System Navigation

Bronco is designed to make file system navigation fast.

Keyboard navigation. Typing in the directory listing will change the currently selected item to match what you have typed. Pressing enter will open files or change directories. Multiple files can be selected with the arrow keys by holding the shift key.

Other directory shortcut keys include / for the root directory, .. for the parent directory, ~ for your home directory, and - for the previous directory.

The numeric keys 0-9 are shortcuts to directories. To set a shortcut, open a directory list window for the directory and press Ctrl-# where # is the number for the shortcut. To return to this directory, simply press the shortcut number. This may interfere with normal typing in the directory list window. For this reason, you may disable this feature.

If you have a 104 key keyboard and your X configuration is set properly you can use the context menu key to open a context menu in a directory list or a find window. There is no context menu for the directory tree.

Mouse navigation. Navigation is simple with the mouse. Clicking in the directory tree will change the current directory of the directory list in the main window. Changing directories in the main window's directory list will change the directory tree's current selection.

You can go to a dirlist's parent directory by clicking the middle mouse button. This is not intuitive, but it can be very conveneint. You can navigate the entire file system without removing the mouse from the directory list.

You cannot remove numeric shortcuts (well, you can if you want to edit the config file $HOME/.bronco/broncorc by hand).

You can right-click in a directory list or find window to get a context menu. If you right-click on a file which is not currently selected, your selection will be cleared and the file you clicked on will be the only selected file.

Drag and drop is not supported in any capacity. It is unlikely to be supported in any future version. I won't use it, and as a result I won't take the time to implement it. If you want to add the feature and submit the changes back to me as a patch I would welcome the changes, so long as you provide a preferences option to disable it. :)

Managing Files

Copying and moving files works the same as it does in Windows Explorer. I always hated the analogy of 'cut and paste' for the file system, but I grew to appreciate the convenience of the implementation.

You can select files by clicking the left mouse button or holding the left mouse button down and dragging along the file list. You can also use the shift key to select all files between the mouse and currently selected file, or use the Ctrl key to select or unselect multiple files. With the keyboard you use the up and down arrows to change the currently selected files. If you hold shift, the files you arrow over will stay selected. You can use Select->Select Mask to select all files that match a shell-style glob pattern (ie, *.txt). The glob pattern defaults to *.ext where 'ext' is the extension of the current item in the directory list. Note that the select mask does not clear the current selection, so select masks are cumulative. The shortcut for Select Mask is Ctrl-S.

To copy files, select the files and choose Selection->Copy. Go to the target directory and select Selection->Paste. To move, select Selection->Move and then Selection->Paste. The Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V keyboard shorcuts make this process quick.

Note that when you select copy or move, the file names you have selected are copied to the global clipboard, so you can paste the names into other applications.

To change file permissions use Selection->Change Permissions. This will open a dialog box with tri-state check boxes. Checks mean that all files have this attribute turned on, blanks mean all files have this attribute turned off, and gray boxes mean that some are on and some are off. Changing a box will set the attributes for all selected files. Changing a box to gray will leave this attribute unchanged for all selected files.

You cannot change file permissions from the 'Properties' dialog box. The checkboxes in this dialog are read-only.

Managing Windows

Bronco can have many windows open at once. The main window always contains a menu bar at the top, a directory tree on the left, and a directory list on the right. If you attempt to run Bronco while another instance is already running, the new instance will tell Bronco to open a new window with a directory list.

You can also open a floating directory list at any time by selecting File->New Window or pressing Ctrl-N. The floating directory lists share "clipboards" so you can copy and paste between them.

Bronco's find, grep, and tar browsing features also have separate windows. Most windows can by closed by pressing Ctrl-W. Most windows will also cause Bronco to quit if you press Ctrl-Q. It is unfortunate that Qwerty keyboards have the W and Q keys so close together.

Most windows will remember their size between Bronco sessions.

Configuration

Settings->File Associations opens a dialog box which associates shell-style file globs with external programs. The command column allows metacharacters starting with a dollar sign ($). The available characters are listed below:

• $F - File name. Each file will be given to separate executions of the specified program. This is useful to open several documents in separate instances of a program. An upper-case F is the full path whenever possible. A lower-case F is the relative path whenever possible. If the requested path type is unavailable, the other will be used.
• $L - File list. All files will be used as arguments to one execution of the specified program. This is useful to open all documents in one instance of a program. An upper-case L is the full path whenever possible. A lower-case L is the relative path whenever possible. If the requested path type is unavailable, the other will be used.
• $d - The current directory. The full path of the current directory, when available. Otherwise, it will be the root directory (/).
• $n - Line number. This is only used when opening programs from the Grep window. The line number associated with the file to be opened will be passed to the program in place of $n. If the line number is unavailable, 0 (zero) will be substituted. $n may be specified in the Grep Edit program or in any Open or Open With command that accepts a line number as a command-line argument.
• $p - Prompt for arguments. This will prompt the user for additional arguments on every execution of the specified program.

Settings->Preferences presents a dialog box which allows you to change some aspects of Bronco's appearance and behavior.

Global The global tab contains some general preferences for the display of files.

• Day before year - Show dates in mm/dd/yy format if unchecked, and dd/mm/yy format if checked.
• Four-Digit Year - Show the last two digits of the year if unchecked, and all four digits of the year if checked.
• ASCII-betical - Sorting by name sorts in ASCII order, all upper-case characters come before all lower-case characters.
• Alphabetical - Sorting in alphabetical order, character case does not affect the sorting order.

Directory The directory tab contains options which affect the behavior of the directory list and directory tree.

• Group Directories - Mix directories and regular files when sorting if unchecked, group all directories at the top of the directory list if checked.
• List Directories Last When Reversed - Keep directories at the top when reversing the sort order if unchecked, move directories to the bottom of the list when reversing the sort order if checked.
• Show Files And Directories Starting With '.' In Directory List - Hide any files starting with a dot '.' if unchecked, show files starting with a dot '.' if checked.
• Show Directories Starting With '.' In Directory Tree - Hide any directories starting with a dot '.' if unchecked, show directories starting with a dot '.' if checked.
• Show Error Logs - Ignore error logs if unchecked, display error logs after a child process exits if checked. This shows a dialog box of errors from copy, move, and delete operations, as well as various other external applications.
• Use Numeric Directory Shortcuts - Don't use the number keys as directory shortcuts if unchecked, use number keys as directory shortcuts if checked. Enabling this allows you to use Ctrl-# (where # is a number from 0 through 9) to associate a number with a directory. Pressing that number in a directory list will cause Bronco to return to the saved directory.
• Directory Font - Choose a font for the directory list and directory tree. This works best as a fixed-width font, but fixed width is not required. Some fonts cannot be used in the directory list or tree. This will update all active windows when you confirm the changes to the preferences window with the "Ok" button.

File Operations The file operations tab allows you to enable confirmations for common file management commands like copy, move, and delete.

• Confirm - If a checkbox in this group is checked you will be asked to confirm that action. The options you can enable confirmations for are Copy, Move, Delete, and Overwrite.
• Continue On Errors - Stop the file operation at the first error if unchecked, continue the file operation even if errors are encountered. Errors are reported with the "Error Log" option in the "Directory" tab.

Archive The archive tab contains preferences for creating and extracting tar archives. Archive support relies on an external tar program.

• Overwrite Existing Files - Do not overwrite files in the filesystem with files from an archive if unchecked, overwrite files in the filesystem with files from an archive if checked.
• Extract Modification Time - Set extracted file's time to the time of extracting if unchecked, set extracted file's time to the time in the archive if checked.
• Compression - Select the default method of file compression for archive creation. Options are gzip, bzip2, compress, and none. Compression support requires external compression programs.

Custom Commands The custom commands tab allows you to add programs or shell scripts that interact with Bronco. These programs can operate on selected files, the current directory, or any other user-specified arguments. You can use custom commands to run filters on a set of files or capture the output from your favorite shell commands or console applications. This menu is most useful for use with programs which take advantage of Bronco's Helper API. See the Bronco Helper Library distribution for details.

• Menu Item - The Menu Item column displays the label that will appear in the "Custom Commands" portion of the File or context menu.
• Program - The Program column displays the command that will be executed when the user selects the menu item from the "Custom Commands" portion of the File or context menu. The Program column can contain any of the $ metacharacters that the Open and Open With commands support. See the section on File Associations for details.
• Up And Down Arrows - These arrows will move the currently selected menu item up or down in the list of commands. The menu items will appear in the same order in the Custom Commands menu that they appear in the Custom Commands preferences tab.
• Edit - Edit a custom command's menu item or program. Double-clicking on an item will also open an edit window.
• New - Add a new command to the Custom Commands menu.
• Delete - Delete an item from the Custom Commands menu.

Programs The programs tab allows you to specify programs that are used in special situations within Bronco.

• XTerm - XTerm is the program that will be executed when you want to start a terminal window. You may use any terminal that is installed on your system.
• Grep Edit - The grep edit program is the program that is used to open files from the grep window. If no program is specified, the default program for the file type is used instead. If the program accepts a line number on the command line, you can specify $n in place of the line number and Bronco will replace $n with the current line number when opening a file with the specified program (this works with the grep window or the standard Open and Open With commands). In situations where a line number is unavailable zero (0) is used.

Other Features

Selecting File->New Window will open a new window with a directory listing. It behaves just like the dirlist in the main window except that the directory is not changed by a selection change in the dirtree. The shortcut to open a new window is Ctrl-N.

Selecting File->New Shell will open an xterm in the current directory. The actual "xterm" program is customizable. See Settings->Preferences->Programs. The shortcut to open a new shell is Ctrl-S.

Selecting File->Find will open a window to search the file system. Currently it will support simple shell-style globs and regular expressions. More functionality may be added later, such as searching by time, size, permissions, ownership, etc. Shortcut is Ctrl-F.

Selecting File->Grep will allow you run a grep on all files in a directory or selected files. This grep may be recursive or case-sensitive. Each matching line of a text file is represented by a row in the grep window. The row contains the file name, the matching line number, and the text of the matching line. Double-clicking or pressing enter on the item will launch the "GrepEdit" program (Settings->Preferences>Programs) or the default program for that file type as specified in the File Associations. If the command to open the file contains the $n wildcard, Bronco will replace $n with the current line number, allowing external programs to open the file to the specified line number. The shortcut for grep is Ctrl-G.

A tar archive can be created by selecting the files or directories to be included in the archive and select File->New Archive. Bronco can create archives with compress, gzip, and bzip2 (using external programs). Shortcut is Ctrl-T.

You can view tar archives with Bronco's archive viewer (which uses an external tar program). Simply double-click or press Enter on an archive. This will open a floating window that allows you to view the contents of the archive and extract some or all of the files it contains. Tar's archive viewer also supports the compress, gzip, and bzip2 compression formats.

You can mount and unmount file systems by pressing Ctrl-M on the directory in the dirlist window. This feature is very simple and mostly unecessary when using automount for removable devices.

Bronco has a FIFO (named pipe) API which allows programs to have limited interaction with Bronco. This enables the user to write custom commands or extensions to Bronco. For example, you could select a list of mp3s and choose a custom command called "Make Index". "Make Index" would open a user-written program that could ask Bronco to prompt for a file name, create an HTML index based on mp3 id tags, and notify the user when the process is complete. There could even be a progress bar or a multi-column list showing some statistics on the mp3 processed. This is only a simple example of a helper application. See the Custom Commands preferences tab and the Bronco Helper Library documentation for details.