If you are using a unix shell, spy is a fast text-based file-navigation utility for organizing your files. It provides greater speed in manipulating files than a GUI, while also providing direct access to scripts and unix commands, and being easier to use than the unix C shell.

spy runs in a window shell, and provides an efficient interface to the unix file system via its single-keystroke commands. Anything you can normally do in a c-shell, you can do in spy, but more quickly. Using single keystroke commands, spy quickly navigates between directories, and selects files in order to perform actions on them. Once files are selected, you can use all the standard unix commands with them through the use of a unix meta-key.

The most commonly used single-keystroke commands are listed in the quick reference. These commands are covered in greater detail in the following pages.

The current directory is always displayed at the top of the spy window.

The current file is always highlighted in yellow within the spy window.

The yellow high-light is also known as the cursor. You can move the cursor within the spy window with the following keys:

J/ K Moves the cursor down or up a line.

H/ L Moves the cursor one column to the left or right.

The search command moves the cursor move to a file that begins with the letters you specify.

/ string Enter

Typing / and a string selects the file that begins with string. You can use standard unix wildcard characters to perform pattern searches. For example, entering:

/ Scene1*.pic Enter

we are telling the search to find "any name starting with Scene1 and ending with .pic. This works because the * character is a wildcard character meaning any number or letters.

Similarly, we could tell the search to find *.txt, in which case spy would search for any file that ends with the letters .txt.

There is a spy option to control search behavior. See relaxSearch.

Typing N moves the cursor to the next occurrence of a file or directory whose name starts with the string specified in the last search.

If there are more files in a directory than can be displayed in the spy window, spy indicates it is displaying Page x of y. To flip between these pages, use the keys:

• ⌃ Ctrl + F displays the next page of files (forward).

• ⌃ Ctrl + B displays the previous page of files (backward).

Each directory can contain files and other directories. Use the following keys to move down and up between directories.

• D – If the file that is currently highlighted with the cursor is a directory, typing D moves down into that directory.

  For example, if you were in $HFS/houdini and the cursor was on the file sbin, you will then be in $HFS/houdini/sbin after typing D.

• U – Moves up one directory level, and enters the enclosing directory.

  For example, if you were in $HFS/houdini/sbin, you will be in $HFS/houdini after typing U.

⇧ Shift + J Prompts you to jump to another directory. spy displays a default directory name, which is the previous directory you jumped from. There are now several choices. Do one of the following:

• Typing Enter goes to the displayed default directory.

• Typing a directory name followed by the Enter key jumps to that directory. For example, typing: $HFS/demo Enter, jumps to the $HFS/demo directory.

• Typing E re-displays the default directory, and allows you to use the J and K keys to scroll through a list of directories from which you have previously jumped. Type Enter to jump to the displayed directory.

• Typing a question mark (⇧ Shift + /) displays a list of directories from which you have previously jumped. Use the J and K keys to move down and up the list. Type Enter to jump to the highlighted directory.

• Type ⌫ Backspace at any time to abort the jump.

Jump not only allows jumping to a directory, but also to filenames within the current directory or in another directory (the cursor is moved to the file). Names differ from directories in that directory names are preceded with a slash ( / ).

Environment variables can be used in pathnames, you may want to set up environment variables to lessen the amount of typing associated with long directory names. Instead of a directory path, simply type the variable name. For example when performing a jump (⇧ Shift + J), typing:

$HFS/demo

will jump to the directory containing the Houdini demo files. Names of directories stored in environment variables can be obtained by typing:

!printenv Enter

In unix, each user has a special directory to store files called the home directory. This is the directory which is usually displayed when you first log in to your machine and start spy.

Typing ⇧ Shift + H takes you back to your home directory.

In unix, anywhere a pathname is requested, typing “~” will specify your home directory. This can be used to rapidly get to any file or subdirectory within your home directory. For example:

~/MyFiles

…enters the directory /MyFiles which is in your home directory. This can be used in conjunction with the jump command ( ⇧ Shift + J) to jump back to your home directory.

To search multiple directories for a file, you need to use the unix find command. For example, typing:

!find /usr/staff/john -name "Jo*" -print 

displays all the files beginning with Jo that are contained within any subdirectory of /usr/staff/john. It is important to note that the find is case sensitive.

Within a directory, you can tag a number of files to operate on. Common operations include deleting files, and displaying images on the screen. The files that are tagged will have a + to the left of the name. This section describes how to tag and untag files. Later you will see how you can use the % character in unix commands as a shorthand notation for the tagged files.

john@pisa: /n/berne/Documentation/Images/ Page 2/2 (+9) 

If the current file is not a directory, typing D displays the contents of a text file using less.

When less displays a file, you can use the following single-key commands, which are similar to spy and vi:

J or Enter Scroll down one line.

K Scroll up one line.

F or Space Scroll forward one page.

B Scroll backward one page.

⇧ Shift + G Goes to the end of the file.

1 G Goes to the beginning of the file ( Line# then G goes to that line).

/ string Search for string in the file, and display that line.

N Go to next occurrence of string.

H Display help, including the commands listed here.

Q Enter Quit less and return to spy or unix

E or V Edit the current file using vi. If you do not know how to use vi, you can get out of it by typing O Q F R.

Although many things can be done from within spy, starting Houdini or other programs is often done with unix commands.

While you are in spy, any time you need to execute a unix command, simply precede the command with the ! key, and then type the command. For example:

! df -k Enter

displays the amount of free disk space in kilobytes.

Unix commands often require the name of a file(s) as arguments. We can provide these filenames from spy by using the % character within our unix command. Anywhere this character is found, it will insert the name(s) of the currently tagged files.

For example, if the files 1.pic, 2.pic and 3.pic are tagged, then the command:

! iplay % Enter

translates into:

! iplay 1.pic 2.pic 3.pic Enter

! cmd Enter executes cmd.

For example:

!df Enter

displays the amount of free disk space.

!! Enter Re-executes the last unix command.

!! string Enter Re-executes the last command which started with the string string. For example, if a recent command was:

!hview test.pic Enter

then the command

!!im Enter

…re-executes it.

!? Displays the command history - a list of the most recent unix commands you've executed. As in the jump history, you can move down and up the list with J and K. Movement forward and backward along one line is accomplished with the Space and ⌫ Backspace keys.

Once the list of command history is displayed, you can edit the line with the following commands, similar to the vi editor:

Enter Typing the Enter key executes the current command as-is.

/ string Enter Moves the cursor to the next command starting with string.

A Adds text after the location of the cursor until you type E or Enter.

I Inserts text before the location of the cursor until you type the E or Enter key.

X Deletes the character in front of the cursor.

⇧ Shift + C Replaces text after the cursor with text you enter, until you type E or Enter.

D + W Deletes the current word.

C + W Replaces current word with text you enter until you type the E or Enter keys.

⌃ Ctrl + C You can abort the jump at any time by pressing ⌃ Ctrl + C or ⌦ Del depending on your setup.

! E Displays the most recent command and allows the above editing commands to be used. Then, when you press Enter, the command is executed. As above, ⌃ Ctrl + C or ⌦ Del aborts the command.

? Lists all single keystroke commands, as described in this chapter.

⌃ Ctrl + L Redraws the screen if it has been corrupted by other programs sending text to the same window shell. If you are ever unsure that what you see in the spy window is correct information, this command ensures that it is up-to-date.

⌃ Ctrl + P Lists the processes you are running. You can use the unix kill command to kill these processes.

⇧ Shift + Q Quits spy and leaves the jump history and the command history in the file .spyHistory file your home directory.

spy is set up with several default key mappings:

1 Equivalent to: hview % Enter (where % is the highlighted file)

2 Equivalent to: houdini % Enter

3 Show cpu system activity.

4 Show most active cpu process.

⇧ Shift + M Read mail using current mail program.

A .spyrc file in your home directory allows you to customize spy with a list of key-mappings. Each entry assigns a commonly used command to a single keystroke. For example, the default .spyrc file assigns hview to the 1 key, and launch Houdini is assigned to the 2 key.

Edit the .spyrc file with a text editor (such as vi) to add your own commonly used commands. Do this with the map command. For example:

Be sure to map only those keys which spy does not already use, or you will have trouble executing certain spy commands.

Use ⌃ Ctrl + R to reload the .spyrc file after you have saved your changes.

echo $TERM

color filenamePattern color

color *.hip purple
color -dir yellow
color core reverse_red
color -tagged reverse_blue
color -x green

map C colortoggle 

ignoremask [mask] [group] 

ignoremask .* 

ignoremask Makedepend 1 ignoremask *.o 1 

ignoretoggle [group] 

map [key] ignoretoggle =[group] 

ignoremask *.o 1 
map o ignoretoggle =1

ignoredefault [group] [use] 

In general, you should never need to remap the spy key functions, but if for some reason you would like to, you can use the map command to reassign the keys spy uses with the following list of Key Functions.

For example, if you were using a Dvorak keyboard layout, but wanted to maintain the six directory navigation keys in the same physical location, you could add the following mappings to your .spyrc file:

map d left
map h down
map t up
map n right
map g climb
map e display

The following special key names are available:

• <left>

• <right>

• <up>

• <down>

• <s-left> (⇧ Shift + ←)

• <s-right> (⇧ Shift + →)

• <home>

• <end>

• <pagedown>

• <pageup>

• <insert>

• <f1..f12>

To get spy to use the arrow keys instead of J K H L, add this into your .spyrc:

map <left>   left
map <right>  right
map <up>     up
map <down>   down
map <enter>  display
map <s-left> climb

You can bind the following commands to keys: