NAME
lefty - A Programmable Graphics Editor
SYNOPSIS
lefty [ options ] [ file ]
DESCRIPTION
lefty is a two-view graphics editor for technical pictures. This editor
has no hardwired knowledge about specific picture layouts or editing
operations. Each picture is described by a program that contains
functions to draw the picture and functions to perform editing
operations that are appropriate for the specific picture. Primitive
user actions, like mouse and keyboard events, are also bound to
functions in this program. Besides the graphical view of the picture
itself, the editor presents a textual view of the program that
describes the picture. Programmability and the two-view interface allow
the editor to handle a variety of pictures, but are particularly useful
for pictures used in technical contexts, e.g., graphs and trees. Also,
lefty can communicate with other processes. This feature allows it to
use existing tools to compute specific picture layouts and allows
external processes to use the editor as a front end to display their
data structures graphically.
USAGE
The file name is optional. It may be -, for reading from standard
input. lefty uses two environment variables, LEFTYPATH and
LEFTYOPTIONS. LEFTYPATH is a colon separated list of directories. When
lefty tries to open a file, it searches that path for the file. When
lefty tries to start up another process, it searches LEFTYPATH first,
then the standard PATH variable. LEFTYOPTIONS can be used to set
specific options. Options specified on the command line override
options set through this variable.
OPTIONS
-x Instructs the editor to exit after processing file.
-e <expression>
<expression> is parsed and executed.
-el <num>
Set error reporting level. The default value is 0. 0 never
prints any messages. 1 prints severe errors, such as trying to
return from a non function. 2 is the most useful: it reports
function calls that cannot be executed, either because there is
no function, or because of argument mismatches. 3 also warns
about bad variable names. 4,5 warn about expressions that do
not return a value. Only level 1 messages are real errors. The
rest arise from legal lefty statements, but may be cased by some
logic errors.
-sd <num>
Specifies how much of the stack to show, when an error message
is to be printed. The default value is 2. With 0, no part of
the stack is shown. With 1, only the top stack frame is printed.
With 2, the full stack is printed.
-sb <num>
Specifies how much of each function in the stack to show, when
an error message is to be printed. The default value is 2. With
0, no part of the function is shown. With 1, only the line
around the error is printed. With 2, the full function body is
printed.
-df <string>
Sets the default font. This font is used whenever a requested
font cannot be found. The string must be a legal X font. If
string is ’’, lefty will draw small boxes instead of text.
-ps <file>
Specifies a default file name for postscript files. This name is
used when no name is specified in the createwidget call. The
default file name is out.ps.
-V Prints the version.
SEE ALSO
lefty user guide.