Provided by: seetxt_0.72-6_amd64 
NAME
seetxt/seeman ‐‐ GUI text file and manual page ("manpage") viewer for X windows.
SYNOPSIS
seetxt [textfile] [-x search term]
seeman [manpage] [-s section] [-x search term]
DESCRIPTION
Seetxt and seeman (collectively: "see") are the same program, but the name used to call it indicates
whether a man page or a regular text file is being loaded. Subsequently, the invocation name is
irrelevant ‐‐ the GUI can always be used to view both kinds of files. See maintains document "meta‐data"
independently for each user, allowing you to keep bookmarks and highlights for read‐only system files
(including man pages) in a simple and intuitive manner. See also does layered finds, hyper‐linked
apropos searches, and can be set to monitor an existing file (such as a log) for changes.
By default, see runs in "server mode": command‐line requests will be sent to the running server rather
than starting a new instance. This helps facilitate integration with file browsers, most of which allow
you to register a command to use when viewing a text document.
See uses the titlebar to issue some program messages. You can drag n' drop a text file from another
application window into the text area to view it (this does not move or copy the file anywhere, and is
not applicable to man pages).
INVOCATION OPTIONS
To start "see" (or to send a request to the existing server), use either seetxt or seeman, then the file
name, then any options. The filename must be before the options. If no filename is given, a new instance
of see is launched, even if there's a server running. If the filename itself begins with a dash, make
sure to use the full path or "./". You can also view out‐of‐path manual pages by using the full pathname
or "./". See will refer to such pages (in the filelist, etc.) as belonging to section "***".
All options are a single character preceded by a dash.
-s section
Used to indicate a manual page section to use instead of the default, eg. "seeman printf -s 3".
Do not use this with out‐of‐path manpages.
-x term
See will perform an initial find‐all text search for "term", highlighting all instances. To
search for a phrase, (ie, a term including spaces), enclose the term in quotation marks.
-v Show version. This documentation is for version 0.72.
-h Show a helpful "usage" message.
NOTE ABOUT SYMLINKS IN FILE PATHS: If you load a file in your current working directory with no path, see
uses the real path to that file. However, if that directory is also symlinked, and you later load the
file using a full path to the file with a symlink somewhere in it, see will use that path. This matters
with regard to the filelist and seedata (bookmarks/highlighting), since that information is saved by file
name including the path, and a symlinked path will not match "the real one".
THE NAVIGATION BAR AND FILELIST
Top left on the GUI are three buttons: a "Back" button, a button containing the name of the current file,
and a "Forward" button. The middle button will present the Filelist. This is a list of previously
viewed files, in "last in, first out" order. You can select a file from this list by double left
clicking on it (which moves that file to the top of the list). You can also use the Back and Forward
buttons, with or without the Filelist window open, to skip through the list (files loaded this way do not
change position). When you switch files, the last position of the cursor is recorded, so you can switch
back and forth between files and maintain a line position without bothering to place a bookmark. This
information is saved for all files in the list, even between invocations, and is shared between
instances. The Filelist is kept on disk and you should define a location for this in your configuration
(see below); if not, see will use a global list from its runtime directory.
You can edit the Filelist on disk manually if desired. Note that the format changed between 0.61 and
0.70, and your old Filelist will not be compatible. To correct it: all file and manpage names must be
followed by a |, then the (section) in parentheses for man pages. Optionally, there is then a $NUM where
"NUM" is an integer ‐‐ this is the character position of the cursor on load. The bar itself (|) is
mandatory as is a section for manpages. You will be warned about invalid entries. Also read the NOTE
ABOUT SYMLINKS IN FILE PATHS under INVOCATION OPTIONS, above.
BOTTOM TOGGLES AND TEXT ENTRY
There are five toggle buttons along the bottom of the see interface, two of which look like little round
lights that blink green when set. Click directly on the light to toggle it. The left light toggles the
server on and off (see SERVER MODE, below). The right light sets a watch on the current file, which
means it will be reloaded at an interval to include any new changes. The default for this interval is
ten seconds (see CONFIGURATION, below).
NOTE: Files over a default 1 Mb are not reloaded ‐‐ they are tailed. This means if the file size has
increased, an amount equal to the difference will be taken from the end and added to the display. That
works fine if "the change" was an addition to the end (such as occurs with a normal log). But if you
want to monitor a very large text file for other (random) changes, you will have to adjust the default 1
Mb limit, see CONFIGURATION. This does not apply to man pages. If the cursor is at the end of a watched
file, the display should remain there even if the file has grown.
The three buttons in the center, around the text entry, are controls for text searching. If you type
something into the text entry and press enter, see will perform a "find all" style search, highlighting
the term in yellow where found and moving the view to include the first instance. You can now advance
the cursor to the next instance with ctrl‐n, and back to the previous instance with ctrl‐p. If you
toggle "push" and enter a new search term, all the instances of the last search will change to a purple
highlight and the new term will be yellow. Reloading, or setting a watch which causes reloading, will
erase the highlights. Don't worry, there's a command history, making it easy to repeat searches by using
the arrow keys in the text entry (this history is not shared or saved between invocations).
Normally, searches are case‐insensitive. To make the search case‐sensitive, toggle "case". To process
the search term as a regular expression, toggle "regexp" (eg: to find "for" but not "foreach", search for
"\bfor\b" as a regexp). These are POSIX style regular expressions, as with the "grep" command. The
number to the left of the text entry shows the number of instances found in the last search. You can use
"ctrl‐/" to set focus to the text entry instead of clicking in it with the mouse.
There are a few key combinations that may be useful in navigating the text area: alt‐left or Home moves
to the beginning of a line, alt‐right jumps 27 characters at a time, End moves to the end of the line.
Ctrl‐home moves to the very beginning of the document, ctrl‐end to the very end.
MAIN MENU
The main menu is invoked with the right button when the mouse pointer is in the main text area. All the
entries have ctrl macros or "hotkeys" which work anywhere, if appropriate. There can be as many as
twenty items on the menu if you have a seedata file and "copy to" directory defined in ~/.seeconfig.
Some items (eg. copy, help, quit), are self‐explanatory and not included here.
file list (ctrl‐f)
This opens the Filelist window (see FILELIST above).
see bookmarks (ctrl‐s)
If any bookmarks exist for the current file they will be loaded with the file. Bookmarks are
displayed as a line number and, to help identify them, the first 31 characters in the line (if the
line is blank or contains less than 31 characters, two or more text lines may appear next to the
number). You move to the bookmark by double left clicking on it. You can DELETE a bookmark from
the list by using both buttons/button‐3. Bookmarks are saved automatically as they are placed and
deleted. See loads bookmarks based on the full pathname of the file (except for man pages), so if
the file has been moved, the saved bookmarks will not appear. However, the bookmark index used
for all files is itself just one plain text file which can be easily edited if need be (see
CONFIGURATION, below). This requires that you have a "seedata" file defined in your
configuration.
place bookmark (ctrl‐m)
Add a new bookmark for the line containing the text cursor. Bookmarks are automatically saved (if
you have a seedata file).
reload (ctrl‐l)
This updates the display to reflect the current state of the file. With files over 1 MB, the file
is "tailed" (see NOTE in the previous section), which is useful for long logs, etc. To actually
reload the entire file (if it is that big), use the file list (the first file in the file list is
always the last file loaded). The cursor and view will return to the same line number as before
(which may or may not be the same line, obviously), unless this is a large "tailed" file, in which
case the view moves to the end.
apropos search (ctrl‐a)
List the results of an "apropos" search for man pages in the main text area, using whatever term
is in the bottom text entry. Individual page names are double underlined green and hyper‐linked.
Double left click to display the page.
(un)number lines (ctrl‐3)
Add or remove line numbers on the left. Line numbers are only available on files with less than
100000 lines. When performing searches on files longer than ten thousand lines, it is recommended
you turn line numbering off first.
bold blue (ctrl‐h)
This applies a "bold blue" tag to the currently selected text. This mark‐up will appear again in
see whenever you load this file (if the path is the same), until you "untag" it.
italic red (alt‐r)
Applies an "italic red" tag to the currently selected text. What was just said about italic red
is equally true of bold blue.
untag (ctrl‐u)
Removes any tagging/mark‐up from the currently selected text. Tip: when untagging, use a decent
swath around the tag you want to remove in case there is whitespace included. This may seem
irrelevant, but if the file changes and you have groups of one or two whitespace characters
highlighted by accident, those "hidden" highlights will suddenly appear. They can also be
confusing in the seedata file (see CONFIGURATION, below).
wrap mode (ctrl‐w)
Gives you three choices for breaking lines longer than the display: no wrap, wrap on word, or
exact wrap. The default is wrap on word.
send to editor (ctrl‐e)
This issues a user defined command to send the file to a text editor. Personal fav: "vim
‐‐remote". However, since most *nix installations do not have vim compiled this way, the default
is "gedit". See CONFIGURATION, below.
copy out (ctrl‐o)
This will appear if you have a valid "copy to" directory defined in your ~/.seeconfig file. It
takes whatever is in the text entry as the name for the file and copies the contents of the text
buffer to this file, with the "copy‐to" path appended (you can include subdirectories). If the
buffer contains a text file, the new file will be an exact copy. If you have text selected, see
will only include the selected text in the new file, so you can save part of the buffer rather
than all of it. Copy‐out is most useful in combination with the next option...
execute (ctrl‐x)
This executes whatever is in the text entry as a command via the shell and prints the output in
the text view. See keeps the display updated until the command exits. You cannot interact and
this is not really intended for use as a console. However, what you can do is apply a command to
the content of the text buffer as if it were a file, using "SEEBUF" instead of a filename (in
fact, this is written out to a temporary file). For example: if you want to see only the lines in
the buffer containing the word "word", type 'grep word SEEBUF'; this will clear the display and
print the result as if the previous display were a file you just grepped. If you have text
selected in the display, see will only use the selected text for SEEBUF. You can save your
results using "copy‐out", above, and in fact this option will only appear in the menu if you have
a "copy to" directory defined (see CONFIGURATION). By default, see redirects stderr to the
display. If for some reason you do not want this, set "no redirect" (see CONFIGURATION again).
You also get the return value (usually 0) in the titlebar.
reconfigure (F2)
This reprocesses your configuration file (~./seeconfig) and shows you the "Configuration" screen
again. Geometry changes via "dimensions:" may not take place until you restart see.
SERVER MODE
The only way to load a new file into a running instance of see (unless it's in the "file list", above) is
to use drag n' drop, an apropos search (for manpages), or the server.
"Server mode" allows you to send remote commands to see, primarily so that it can be included in the user
menu of a file browser, operated by some other application, or operated from a command‐line. EXAMPLE:
To use see with GNOME's nautilus file browser, click "open with" on a text file in nautilus, select a
custom command, and type "seetxt". From now on, nautilus will offer you the option of viewing text files
with seetxt.
While the server is running, a green light on the left will be blinking, and any command line invocation
which includes a filename or manpage will go to it (including requests from other applications such as
your file browser). Most web browsers work this way ‐‐ if you click on a link in your email client, it
will appear in the running web browser and not launch another one.
The server uses a local socket which defaults to ~/.seesock but it can be set in the configuration file.
If the server refuses to start for some reason, quit see and erase this socket file (it should only exist
when a server is running).
There can only be one server running at a time. You can turn the server off by clicking the flashing
indicator on the left side of the interface.
CONFIGURATION
See does not require any configuration to work, although without it you may not be able to use all
features. An example configuration file is installed into INSTALLDIR/share/seetxt‐runtime (INSTALLDIR is
set at build time, probably /usr/local if you built from source and didn't choose anything different, or
/usr if you installed from a pre‐built package). Copy .seeconfig into your home directory and adapt it
to your needs. Field names are case insensitive and lines beginning with a # are ignored. Configuration
can affect the following:
• "text font" eg, "text font: helvetica 12"
• "dimensions" eg, "dimensions: 1200 800". This is the dimensions of the text area in pixels.
• file load confirmation: normally, see asks you to confirm when a new file is to be loaded. You can
skip this by including "no confirm" on a line by itself.
• "seedata:" this is the location of a text file to store mark‐up and bookmarks in. Eg. "seedata:
/home/user/seedata". DO NOT USE THE TILDE (~). You can edit the seedata file, but be careful to
follow the structure there: manpages require a section number in parentheses. Versions prior to 0.70
did not require this and you may have to add the section manually if your bookmarks for a page do not
load with version 0.70+. After that there is an asterisk separated list of line numbers for the
bookmarks. The first number is the number of bookmarks. Then there can be an "R" (for red) and or
"B" (for blue), with more asterisk separated integers. These are pairs of character positions
(begin and end) for highlights. For example, try inserting this into your seedata file:
seetxt(1)*2*143*263*B*15226*15269*R*15464*15659*
With or without a config file, the first time you use see, it will create a seedata file for you
(defaulting to ~/.seedata). This is the only permanent file automatically created in your home
directory. Also read the NOTE ABOUT SYMLINKS IN FILE PATHS under INVOCATION OPTIONS, above.
• "filelist:" this is the location of a text file to keep the history of viewed files in. It defaults
to INSTALLDIR/share/seetxt‐runtime/filelist, which is world read/writable. Multiple instances of see
may share the same filelist; it is not locked or held open.
• "seesocket:" a path and name to use as the socket for the server; the default is ~/.seesock (again,
do not use a tilde). The full length of this pathname cannot be more than 106 characters (this is a
limitation of local unix sockets). DO NOT ACTUALLY CREATE THIS FILE.
• "watch interval:" is the number of seconds between updates when a file is "watched" (using the right
side blinking toggle, see TOGGLES AND INTERFACE, above); the default is ten seconds. The light blinks
at a constant rate unrelated to the watch time.
• "background:" sets the text area background color (eg, "background: CornflowerBlue"). The text
highlights used by see (red, blue, green, and cyan) are reasonably high contrast, but if you want to
adjust the background for any reason pick a color from /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt (except ones with
spaces in the name), or use the hexbyte RGB format (eg, #ffffff).
• "tail at:" sets the file size boundary at which to use "tailing" rather than a complete reload, in
bytes. (eg, "tail at: 5000000"). The default is 1000000. See the NOTE at the beginning of BOTTOM
TOGGLES, above.
• "copy to:" is a directory into which to place files from a "copy out" operation (see MAIN MENU
above). Eg, "copy to: /home/user/Desktop". If you do not have a copy‐to directory, you cannot
perform any copy‐outs.
• stderr redirection with the "execute" menu option (see above). To turn stderr redirection off,
include "no redirect" on a line by itself.
• "editor:" sets an editor command to use (eg, "editor: vim ‐‐remote"); see MAIN MENU above for a more
detailed explanation.
Incorrect values in your .seeconfig file may cause a malfunction o_O
ERRORS
Most error messages, either in the titlebar or a pop‐up, should be self‐explanatory.
Short Read on file
This can happen if you try to load a non‐text file, since see will stop at a zero byte, meaning
the amount of text read is less than the actual file length.
Could not create temp file
See uses your home directory for two very short lived possible temporary files, .seeTMP and .seeTP
(these should never be left behind as garbage and you can erase them if you find them). Without
the permission to do this, functionality will be reduced.
Unable to update filelist! (Error #3)
This will only happen if see is able to read the filelist, but not write to it. In that case you
either need to change/add the "filelist:" entry in ~/.seeconfig or have the permission to write
the file. The default system wide file list should have been set mode 666 at installation; if
not, your system administrator needs to "chmod 666" the filelist.
Can't Validate Text (Error #4)
There is a non‐utf8 character (something unprintable) in your file.
Out of Memory
Your computer will never run out of memory, I promise.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2008, 2009, 2010 Mark Thomas Eriksen. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or
modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later
version published by the Free Software Foundation (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html).
Visit the seetxt homepage: http://seetxt.sf.net
Version 0.72 December 2010 SEETXT(1)