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Readme for Kascara 0.0.1 - Part of KDE
Author: Roberto Alsina <ralsina@unl.edu.ar>
License: GPL (See file COPYING for details)
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Dear KDE user.
This is the 0.0.1 release of Kascara.
It's not an "official" release.
It's not a "beta" release.
It's not an "alpha" release.
It's a "try-it-to-see-what-it-does-oops-my-house-is-on-fire-now" release, so
treat it accordingly ;-)

What is it:
-----------

Kascara is a dumb terminal emulator.
You may wonder "What a heck can I do with a dumb terminal emulator????"
If you do... keep on reading.

What a heck can I do with a dumb terminal emulator????
------------------------------------------------------

Don't let the name fool you, Kascara emulates a dumb terminal, but Kascara
itself has smarts, it's just playing dumb!

How can I install it?
---------------------

Type
./configure;make;make install

Then go to the kascara/ttyize directory, and edit Makefile.edit_me
Now type make -f Makefile.edit_me
Copy the ttyize binary to some place in your PATH.

WARNING: You need TCL and Expect for ttyize to build.
WARNING: I wrote ttyize. I have no clue of how it works, that should tell
WARNING: you something ;-)
WARNING: Hopefully, it should be obsolete soon.
WARNING: If you really want to make me happy, turn ttyize into a standalone
WARNING: function and send it to me.

So, how can I use it?
---------------------

Choose a command that is oriented to interactive use. With a command line.
Something like gdb, gnuplot, bc, ash, nslookup, one of those awful unix
utilities, you know some others, I'm sure!

Now, type this:

kascara your_command_here your_command_arg1 .... your_command_argn

You will See a window with two panes.
The top pane is the output of your command.
The bottom pane is the input to your command.
You type in the bottom, it works in the top. Simple!

You can drag the pane separator, and you will find a middle pane. That's your
command history.
If you click in a command, it will appear in your input prompt.

If you double click in one of those commands, the output pane will scroll back
to the moment in the session you entered it (neat, isn't it?)

You can also recall the command history using the up/down arrow keys [not yet].

What a hell does Kascara mean?
------------------------------

Well, Kascara is like a shell that wraps different commands. In spanish, shell
can be translated as cscara. Remove the accent, put the mandatory K, and
you got Kascara. Also, I agree with Taj (the author of KoRn, KArm, and more)
that programs today have too serious names. I mean, the Tate in "Ashton-Tate"
was a parrot!, and we are in this for fun, so who gives a damn.

Finally:
--------

Hope you enjoy this thingie.
For any comments, bug reports, monetary gifts, original uses for Kascara, or
nasty proposals by pretty female geeks, my email is ralsina@unl.edu.ar.
