NAME
vgd - Viewglob communication daemon.
SYNOPSIS
vgd [options]
DESCRIPTION
vgd acts as a mediator between any number of vgseer(1) processes and a
single Viewglob display process (which it controls). It keeps track of
the active terminal and passes information from the corresponding
vgseer (if there is one) to the display.
While vgseer can be used on a remote machine using ssh or telnet, it
only makes sense for vgd to be running on the same X server as the user
(meaning, in most cases, locally).
After successful startup, vgd uses the syslog interface for error
reporting if running as a daemon.
This program is slightly misnamed; traditionally, a single daemon
process provides a service on a machine for all users. In Viewglob’s
case, there should be separate vgd processes for each physical user
running Viewglob. The viewglob startup script handles this
automatically, and is recommended for simple usage.
OPTIONS
This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long
options starting with two dashes. A summary is included below.
-p, --port=<number>
Listen on the given port. The default is 16108 (1-GLOB).
-P, --persistent=<on/off>
Keep vgd around even after all vgseers have disconnected. It
will sit and listen for new connections instead of exiting.
Persistence is off by default.
-D, --daemon=<on/off>
Run vgd as a daemon (it relinquishes its terminal). vgd runs as
a daemon by default.
-d, --display=<vgclassic|vgmini|[path]>
Display program. The Viewglob package comes with vgclassic and
vgmini (the new display). Though there aren’t any other
displays in existence at this point, one could be used by
passing its path. The default is vgmini.
-s, --sort-style=<windows|ls>
In the display, sort files with directories first (Windows) or
purely by name (ls). ls mode is the default.
-r, --dir-order=<descending|ascending|ascending-pwd-first>
In the display, list directories in descending order (the
default), ascending (last referenced directory has the top
listing), or ascending with the current directory always first.
-i, --file-icons=<on/off>
Show or hide the file type icons in the display.
-j, --jump-resize=<on/off>
Enable or disable the automatic moving+resizing feature of
vgmini.
-z, --font-size-modifier=<+/-##>
Increase or decrease the base font size in the display by the
given number. E.g. “-z +2” increases the window manager’s
default by 2, while “-z -2” decreases the default by 2.
--black=<colour>
--red=<colour>
--green=<colour>
--yellow=<colour>
--blue=<colour>
--magenta=<colour>
--cyan=<colour>
--white=<colour>
Define the colours used for interpreting LS_COLORS as you would
in an .Xdefaults file. This means <colour> can be a name such
as “DarkSlateGray” or a hex specification like #RRGGBB (quoted
on the command line). There are also other forms: see
XParseColor(3) for more information. The defaults are easy to
read on a light coloured background, but probably not suitable
for a dark background. For that case, these should be a good
starting point (add to vgd.conf):
black #000000
red #c11125
green #50881e
yellow #c4b400
blue #1662a2
magenta #ef709a
cyan #2ca3a4
white #ffffff
-h, --help
Show summary of options.
-V, --version
Show the version of the program.
NOTES
vgd keeps track of the active terminal by querying the X server. This
doesn’t work great for tabbed terminals such as gnome-terminal and
konsole, because they share an X window. With these, you will need to
wake up vgd when you shuffle around. If you switch to a shell and the
display doesn’t automatically update, send it the refocus command C-g
<TAB>.
By default vgmini is in jump/resize mode, which means it’ll move to be
near the active terminal and change its dimensions to try to match.
Some window managers just don’t deal with this well and the resizing
can get wacky. If you’re seeing this behaviour, you can disable
jump/resize mode (or switch to a different window manager).
FILES
~/.viewglob/vgd.conf
If present, this file specifies a default configuration for vgd.
The file syntax is:
<long_option_name> [ <whitespace> <value> ]
The ’#’ character can be used for comments.
So, to always listen on port 5555, run in persistent mode, and
use a slightly smaller font than your window manager suggests,
the file should contain:
port 5555
persistent on
font-size-modifier -1
Configuration file options can be overridden on the command
line.
~/.viewglob/.<port>
Each instance of vgd listens on both an Internet-domain socket
on the specified port, and a Unix-domain socket named for that
port. Connection attempts on either socket are treated
equivalently.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
LS_COLORS
Used by the display as described in dir_colors(5).
If you encounter an issue where certain filenames do not show in the
display and you are using an encoding other than UTF-8, you may want to
read about the GLib environment variables:
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/glib/glib-running.html
For example, for iso8859-1, run:
G_FILENAME_ENCODING=ISO-8859-1 vgd
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 if vgd daemonizes or exits successfully. If vgd fails
to obtain a connection to the X display, exit status is 3. If a socket
setup error occurs, exit status is 2. For other errors, exit status is
1.
AUTHORS
Stephen Bach <sjbach@users.sourceforge.net>
SEE ALSO
viewglob(1), vgseer(1), ls(1), dir_colors(5), XParseColor(3),
syslogd(8).
April 26, 2006