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Welcome to acme, the editor/shell/window system hybrid.  Acme is a

complete environment you can use to edit, run programs, browse the

file system, etc.

You can scroll the text this window by moving the mouse into

the window (no clicking necessary) and typing the up and down

arrows.

When you start Acme, you see several windows layered into two

columns. Above each window, you can see a ``tag line'' (in blue). The

first thing to notice is that all the text you see is just that:

text. You can edit anything at will.

For example, in the left column is a directory window.

If you look at the window's tag line, you will see that it contains

	/usr/glenda/ Del Snarf Get | Look 

(This might be truncated if the column is narrow.)

That is just text.

Each mouse button (1, 2, 3, from left to right) does a different

thing in Acme:

 *	Button 1 can be used to select text (press it, sweep, release it),

	and also to select the point where text would be inserted in the

	window. Use it now in your /usr/glenda window.

 *	Button 2 can be used to execute things.  For example, use button 1

	to type "ls -l" before "lib/" in the window showing

	/usr/glenda.  Now use button 2 to select "ls -l lib/" (press

	it, select, release it).  As you can see, button 2 means

	"execute this".

 *	Button 3 can be used to get things. For example, click button 3 on

	"lib/" within the "/usr/glenda" window. Can you see how a new window

	shows the contents of "/usr/glenda/lib"? Button 3 can also be used

	to search within the body of a window. Just click button 3 on the

	thing you want to search. Again, you can select something with

	button 1 and then use button 3 on the selection.

You can double-click with button 1 to select words; a double click at

the end or beginning of a line selects the whole line.  Once you have

text selected, you can click on it with button 2 to execute the

selected text.  A single click of button 2 would execute the word

clicked as a command.

Now let's pay attention to the tag line once more. As you can see,

the left part has a path. That is the name for the window and shows

also the directory for the thing shown (file/directory/program

output). When you execute something using button 2, the current

directory for the command is the directory shown in the left part of

the tag (if the thing shown is a file, its directory is used).

As you saw before in the example, there are windows labeled

"/dir/+Errors", that is where Acme shows the output of a command

executed in "/dir".

Another thing you can see is that tag lines contain words like "New",

"Del", "Snarf", etc. Those are commands understood (implemented) by

Acme. When you request execution of one of them, Acme does the job.

For example, click with button 2 on "Del" in the

"/usr/glenda/+Errors" window: it's gone.

The commands shown by Acme are just text and by no means special. Try

to type "Del" within the body of the window "/usr/glenda", and then

click (button-2) on it.

These are some commands understood by Acme:

 *	Newcol: create a new column of windows

 *	Delcol: delete a column

 *	New: create a new window (edit it's tag to be a file name and you

	would be creating a new file; you would need to click on "Put" to

	put the file in the file system).

 *	Put: write the body to disk. The file is the one named in the tag.

 *	Get: refresh the body (e.g. if it's a directory, reread it and

	show it).

 *	Snarf: What other window systems call "Copy".

 *	Paste: Can you guess it?

 *	Exit: exit acme

Acme likes to place new windows itself. If you prefer to change the

layout of a window, you only need to drag the layout box at the left

of the tag line and drop it somewhere else. The point where you drop

it selects the column where the window is to be placed now, as well

as the line where the window should start. You can also click the

layout box to enlarge its window a small amount (button 1), as much

as possible without obscuring other tag lines in the column (button

2), and to fill the whole column (button 3). You can get your other

windows back by button-1- or button-2-clicking the layout box.

This is mostly what you need to get started with Acme. You are

missing a very useful feature: using combinations (chords) of mouse

buttons to do things. You can cut, paste, snarf, and pass arguments

to programs using these mouse chords. You can read this in the

acme(1) manual page, but it's actually extremely simple: Select a

region with button 1 but don't release the button. Now clicking

button 2 deletes the selected text (putting it into the snarf

buffer); clicking button 3 replaces the selected text with the snarf

buffer. That's it!

For more information, read /sys/doc/acme/acme.ps (you can just

button-3 click on that string to view the file).