FM(1)FM(1)NAME
fm, iconview - graphical interface to file systems and URLs (IRIX
Interactive Desktop)
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/fm [-bADph] [-v viewOpts] pathname or URL
/usr/sbin/fm -o oldPath newPath
DESCRIPTION
The IRIX Interactive Desktop file manager, fm, is a safe, easy, and
attractive alternative to the IRIX shell for running applications and
organizing information. Its deceptively simple user interface spares the
user from many subtle and not-so-subtle pitfalls of working in raw IRIX
shells.
fm presents a graphical interface to manipulate the contents of a
directory or URL. The icons on the background and the windows showing
icons of directories or URL sites comprise the fm application. If fm is
launched and an fm window is already open to that location, its window
will be raised. Otherwise, a new fm window will be started which will
open the directory or URL specified as the pathname argument. The fm
will present icons of the items contained in that directory or URL.
These icons can be moved, copied, opened, and manipulated in other ways.
fm accepts the following options.
-b Display icons on the background.
-A "Autoselect", opens a window for the parent of pathname and
selects pathname.
-D Opens a new window for pathname in a separate process, even if an
open window already exists.
-p Pre-loads pathname into the finder text dialog.
-h Pre-loads the name of the autofs(1M) root for the -hosts map.
-v viewOpts
Sets the initial viewing style. Valid arguments are:
view={icon|list|column}
gallery={on|off}
shelf={on|off}
content={on|off}
contentheight={integer}
windowWxH={integer}x{integer}
-o oldPath newPath
If an fm is found which is viewing oldPath, it will be changed to
view newPath. Otherwise, a new fm window will be opened onto
newPath.
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Pathname may be a IRIX pathname or an URL. Currently recognized URL
schemes are http://, ftp://, and file://. If an URL requires
authentication, such as ftp, the user will be prompted for such.
By default, fm is launched with the -b option at login.
An example of using -v option is
fm-v view=list -v content=on -v contentheight=500.
This will launch fm in View as List mode, with contentviewer on, and the
contentviewer height set to 500. These options will override any
corresponding parameters saved out from the last time the location was
visited.
If you wish to login to your system without the file manager running by
default and without icons on the background, create an empty file in your
home directory called .desktop-<hostname>/nodesktop.
To turn off the default running of fm at login for all users of your
system, run /etc/chkconfig desktop off at the IRIX command line. Root
privilege is required to do this. This will have two additional effects:
the toolchest contents will change, and the non-Desktop
/usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession file will be used instead of
/usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession.dt at the start of a login session.
The file manager maintains a log of all recent file system transactions
it makes. (Other icon-based applications that manipulate the file system
will write there too.) The log is stored in $HOME/.desktop-
<hostname>/log, and is renamed to $HOME/.desktop-<hostname>/log.bak when
it gets large. This log, although somewhat cryptic, may be useful in
determining what has happened to files if you are not sure where you
placed them. By default, the two logs will be a maximum of 100KB in
length; if you are short on disk space, it is possible to shrink or
disable the log by adding the line
*desktopLogSize: <size>
to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file, where <size> is the maximum size
in bytes of the log (including the backup copy). <size> is set to 0, by
default. This disables the log. The log may be a useful tool to recover
lost files.
By default, fm does not hang when accessing files from down nfs servers.
This allows the desktop to stay responsive even when a file server is
unavailable. If this feature causes problems in your environment, it can
be disabled by adding the line
*useNoHang: False
to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file.
Icons that are displayed on the background are normally stored in the
directory $HOME/Desktop. This can be changed by setting the environment
variable SGI_DESKTOP_DIRECTORY in your .cshrc or .profile file to point
to the directory to be used for background icons. You will need to log
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out and log back in again in order for this change to take effect.
For more information about the entire IRIX Interactive Desktop
environment, see the IID(1) man page.
CAVEATSfm will refuse to start if it is unable to connect to the file alteration
monitor (fam). In that case, there is probably a problem with the NIS
server. See ypserv(1M).
If your NIS (YP) server is running on a workstation from another vendor,
it will need the following entry in its rpc(4) program number database.
On SGI machines, this entry is stored in /etc/rpc.
sgi_fam 391002
The file manager automatically maintains a cache of known ftr filetypes
in the directory $HOME/.desktop-<hostname>/TypeCache. Stale entries in
this cache can be removed using the cleanCache(1) command.
The main fm process is used to display icons on the background as well as
all directory view windows that were not launched with the "-D" option.
Iconviews of web sites run as separate processes so that the memory they
use can be reclaimed once they are closed. Note that iconviews of web
sites run in the main fm process if an URL is typed into a directory view
window.
$HOME/.desktop-<hostname>/layouts
$HOME/.desktop-<hostname>/log
$HOME/.desktophost/<hostname>
/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/FileManager
SEE ALSOdirview(1), iconcatalog(1), searchbook(1), fam(1), ftr(1), iconsmith(1G),
isSuper(1), launch(1), routeprint(1), tag(1), winterm(1), telldesktop(1),
IID(1), automount(1M), autofs(1M), cleanCache(1), typeCache(1),
flushCache(1)
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