README

FBPAD
=====

Fbpad is a small Linux framebuffer virtual terminal.  It manages many
terminals through single-letter tags; each tag can hold two terminals.
The following table indicates fbpad's key-bindings (m-k means pressing
k, while holding the alt key).

==============	=======================================
KEY		COMMAND
==============	=======================================
m-c		execute a shell (SHELL)
m-m		execute mail program (MAIL)
m-e		execute editor program (EDITOR)
m-x 		switch to tag 'x' (TAGS)
m-j		switch to current tag's alternative terminal
m-k		like m-j
m-p		show tag summary
m-o		jump to the previous tag
m-tab		show the next terminal
m-s		create a text screenshot (SCRSHOT)
m-y		redraw the terminal
c-m-e		reload the fonts and terminal colors (CLRFILE)
c-m-l		lock the screen; use PASS to unlock
c-m-o		disable/enable tag switching
c-m-q		quit fbpad
m-,		scroll up
m-.		scroll down
m-=		split tag horizontally/vertically
m--		unsplit tag
m-;		like m-c but with switching signals
==============	=======================================

To execute only a single program in fbpad, the program and its
arguments should be passed as command line arguments of fbpad.  Fbpad
executes the specified program in a terminal, disables all terminal
switching commands, and exits as soon as the program finishes.

Programs like fbpdf, fbvnc, and fbff read the FBDEV environment
variable, which can specify the framebuffer device and its drawing
region, like "/dev/fb0:1438x448+1+451".  Fbpad defines this
environment variable when executing a program, so that if a tag is
split, the program running in its terminal is limited to its
corresponding framebuffer region.

SETTING UP
==========

To configure fbpad, you should edit conf.h.  To get fbpad running you
need to make sure FR points to a valid fbpad font (for testing you can
try http://litcave.rudi.ir/courr.tf) and SHELL to the shell you want
fbpad to execute.  Once these are set, you should be able to start
fbpad without problems.

Fbpad fonts can be generated using fbpad_mkfn program
(http://litcave.rudi.ir/).  The FR, FI, and FB macros specify the path
of fbpad fonts for regular, italic, and bold fonts.  If FI or FB is
NULL, the regular font is used for italic or bold text.

Next, you may want to change the list of fbpad tags by changing TAGS.
FGCOLOR and BGCOLOR macros specify foreground and background colors,
for instance the FGCOLOR of 2 and BGCOLOR of 0 creates green on black
terminals.  Individual colors can be customized by editing the hex RGB
color description of COLOR* macros.  Also SCRSHOT macro specifies where
fbpad text screenshots, created by "m-s" command, must be saved.

If you want to use fbpad's scrsnap feature, you can edit TAGS_SAVED to
change the list of saved terminals.  Framebuffer memory is saved and
reloaded for these tags, which is very convenient when you are using
programs that change the framebuffer simultaneously, like fbpdf.


256-COLOR MODE
==============

Fbpad supports xterm's 256-color extension, but most programs will not
use this extension, unless the $TERM terminfo entry declares this
feature.  For this purpose, fbpad-256 terminfo file can be created to
contain (the two-space identation should be ignored):

  fbpad-256,
  	use=linux, U8#0,
  	colors#256,
  	pairs#32767,
  	setab=\E[%?%p1%{8}%<%t4%p1%d%e%p1%{16}%<%t10%p1%{8}%-%d%e48;5;%p1%d%;m,
  	setaf=\E[%?%p1%{8}%<%t3%p1%d%e%p1%{16}%<%t9%p1%{8}%-%d%e38;5;%p1%d%;m,

Which can be installed with tic command:

  $ tic -x ./fbpad-256

The following line should be added to shell's startup script:

  export TERM=fbpad-256

Note that in order to use this feature and italic fonts in Vim, adding
fbpad-256 terminfo is not necessary.  Including the following lines in
the vimrc file should enable them:

  set t_ZH=
  set t_Co=256