LOOKAT(1)                        User Commands                       LOOKAT(1)



NAME
       lookat - Un*x file viewer

SYNOPSIS
       lookat [ --help ] [ filename ] [ dir_name ]

DESCRIPTION
       "lookat"  (or  "bekijk" in the Dutch version) is a program to view Un*x
       text files and manual pages.

       Under DOS I used list.com to view text  files. I  didn't  find  such  a
       program  under  my favorite OS, GNU/Linux. The standard  Un*x utilities
       ( more, less, view ...) weren't userfriendly enough. For this reason  I
       created "lookat".

OPTIONS
       --help
              This option displays a help text.

       file_name
              view file_name

       dir_name
              change the current directory to dir_name

BUGS
       None known yet, when you find one you let me know :-)

USAGE
       There are four ways to start lookat :

       *  by just typing 'lookat', after the program is started you can select
       the file you want to view.

       if there is already data on stdin, lookat will read the from stdin, and
       display the contents of stdin

       example:

              ls | lookat

       *  type  'lookat  dir_name',  change the current directory to dir_name.
       When the program is started you can select the file you want to view.

       * by typing 'lookat <filename>', the file with <filename> will automat-
       ically be loaded.

       * in combination with "man"

       examples :

              man -Plookat ls
              export PAGER=lookat; man ls

       If  you  like  "lookat" as your manual page viewer you can put the next
       lines in your /etc/profile

              alias man="man -Plookat"

       After you have loaded a file, the following keys can be used:

       Keys:
                 <-, C-b         : move left / back
                 ->, C-f         : move right / forward
                 arrow up, C-p   : move up / previous line
                 arrow down, C-n : move down / next line
                 PgUp, u         : move up a screen
                 PgDwn, d        : move down a screen
                 HOME            : go to the beginning of a line
                 END             : go to the end of a line
                 o               : open a new file
                 t,<             : go to top (start of file)
                 b,e,>           : go to the last line  (end of file)
                 g               : go to a line number
                 /,z,s,f         : search for a string
                 F3, n, c, v     : continue search
                 F9              : menu
                 ALT+f           : file menu
                 ALT+g           : go menu
                 ALT+s           : search menu
                 ALT+h           : help menu
                 F10,ESC,q       : quit program
                 F1,h,?          : view this help file
                 r               : rebuild screen

       When you press F9 you get access to the pull-down menus,  most  of  the
       functions are also available through the keyboard (see above).

       File|Open or 'o':

              When you select this function you get a window, at the left side
              of the window you get the files of the  current  directory.   By
              selecting  a  file  it  will be loaded. At the right size of the
              window you see the directories, by pressing the TAB key you  are
              able  to switch between the file and the directory selection. By
              selecting a directory with ENTER you change the  current  direc-
              tory. With the ESC key you cancel the file open operation.

       File|Quit or 'F10,ESC,q':

              Quit program.

       Go|to begin or 'b':

              Move to the first line of the file.

       Go|to end or 'e':

              Move to the last line of the file.

       Go|to line or 'g':

              With  this  function you are able to move to a certain line num-
              ber. After you have selected this  function  you  get  a  window
              which  asks  you  to give a line number. With ESC you cancel the
              operation, by pressing the TAB key you can use the  [    OK    ]
              and [ Cancel ] buttons.

       Go|to end of a line or 'END':

              Move to the end of a line.

       Go|to the beginning of a line or 'HOME':

              Move to the beginning of a line.

       Search|for a string or '/,z,s,f'

              With this function you can search for a string in the file.  The
              searching will start from the current line (the  first  line  on
              the  screen) to the last line in the file. After you select this
              function you will see a window which asks you to give a  string.
              The  searching  can  been done on two ways, with or without case
              sensitivity. By pressing the TAB key you can select -with  SPACE
              or ENTER- how to search at

                  [ ] Case sensitive

              With  the  TAB key you are also able to use the [   OK   ] and [
              Cancel ] buttons.

       Search|from beginning of the file

              See above, the searching will start from the first line.

       Search|Again or 'F3'

              Search for the last string again.

       Options|cursor

              Turn the cursor on/off

       Options|give notice

              Notice on exit on/off

       Options|types

              Add, delete, modify types

       Options|colors

              Modify the colors

       Options|Save options

              Save the options to your cfg file ($HOME/.lookat)

       Help|See help file or 'F1,h,?'

              View this help file.

       Help|Keys ...

              Shows a list with the keys you can use in "lookat".

       Help|About

              Shows information about the program (version ,etc.).

CONFIGURATION
       Note:

              The format of the configuration file has changed, please  remove
              the  "="  sign. The old configuration files will still work, but
              may not be supported in the future.

       lookat uses two configuration  files  a  global  configuration  file  (
       /etc/lookat.conf  )  and a user configuration file ( $HOME/.lookat ) if
       the user's configuration file exists the global is ignored.

       If the configuration files aren't available the defaults are used.

CONFIGURATION DIRECTIVES
       cursor  on|off

              turn the cursor on / off

       give_notice  on|of

              give notice on exit  on / off


              create a new type

              If a filename matches a type the external command will  be  used
              to open the file. A typical usage are gzipped files:

                 .gz     "gzip -cd"

              The  type  order  is  important lookat will compare the filename
              with the types starting with the first type and continues  until
              a type matches a filename.

              So  if  you  want to define a type for ".gz" and ".tar.gz" files
              you have to put the .tar.gz type first.

       color object foreground background [ attribute ]

              If your terminal supports colors, this directive can be  use  to
              modify  the  color  of certain objects. Valid objects are: view,
              view_bold, view_italic, main_menu,  main_menusel,  main_menuhot,
              main_menuhotsel,   status_bar,   win1,   win1_edit,   win1_menu,
              win1_menusel, win1_menuhot,  win1_menuhotsel,  win2,  win2_edit,
              win2_menu,    win2_menusel,    win2_menuhot,    win2_menuhotsel,
              view_found.

              Valid colors are: white, black, green, magenta, blue, cyan, yel-
              low, red.

              Valid  attributes  are:  normal,  bold,  underline, reverse, and
              standout.

       mono object foreground_attribute [ background_attribute ]

              If your terminal doesn't support color,  you  can  still  assign
              foreground and background attributes to certain objects.

THANKS TO ...
       Free Software Foundation inc.

              The  GNU  C  Library Reference Manual by Sandra Loosemore And of
              course for gcc, make, bash, grep, man, ls, cp, tar, gzip, emacs,
              less, ..., and more :-)

       Sven Golt, Sven van der Meer, Scott Burkett, Matt Welsh

              From  the  Linux  Documentation Project for their Linux Program-
              mer's Guide.

       Linus, and others ...

              for Linux of course ;-)

       Jan Wagemakers

              For his debugging & to place "see" on his Webpage.  You can find
              more  information  about  Linux  and  Assembly  on his Webpage :
              http://www.janw.easynet.be

       Roel Diederen

              To create the man page for see 1.1

       Aubin Paul

              Aubin created the Mac OSX patch, this made it a  lot  easier  to
              port "lookat" to other platform than GNU/Linux.

       Jim W. Jaszewski

              Corrected some typos in the manpage.

       Kevin Keegan

              For  reporting  his  installation problem on SCO OpenServer box,
              and to provide pre-compiled binaries for SCO Unix.

       Brian Callahan <bcallah@cvs.openbsd.org>

	      openbsd patch, corrected English translation issues

       All Free software programmers (on any computer system)

       And everyone I had forgot to mention :-{

LAST WORDS ...
       When you find "lookat" useful (or useless), have  suggestions,  find  a
       bug :-( you may let me know.

AUTHOR
       V1.4.4rc Staf Wagemakers

       homepage : http://www.wagemakers.be
       email : staf@wagemakers.be

COPYRIGHT
       Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
       are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
       notice and this notice are preserved.

       This software is copyright  (c) 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003  
       by  Staf  Wagemakers <staf@wagemakers.be>

       You are free to distribute this software under the  terms  of  the  GNU
       General Public License



lookat 1.4.0                     April 2003                         LOOKAT(1)
