If you have trouble compiling from source, please see the Notes section at the bottom of this document.

What is Rodent?
===============

Rodent is fast, small and powerful file manager for the GNU operating system 
(but it also works in BSD).

What Rodent is not?
===================

Rodent is *not* a filemanager for dummies. Emphasis is on ease of use for the
advanced user, not the computer illiterate. 

Why is Rodent easy to use?
==========================

Rodent is not only a point and click application, a fully functional console 
terminal is also an integral part. In other words, you can type any command 
from the keyboard and Rodent will have a controlling thread ready and active.

Why is Rodent fast?
===================

Rodent is fast because it uses multithread mechanisms to perform operations 
in parallel processing. This is the fastest way to work with modern multicore 
processors. If your processor is not multicore, you may not notice this.

Why is Rodent small?
====================

Rodent is small because it adds no unnecesary code. Rodent acts as a graphic
front end for "cp", "mv", "ln", "mount", "file", "convert" and your shell of
choice. Some of the developers responsible for the time proven and bug ridden
code used by Rodent are:
    * Richard M. Stallman
    * Torbjörn Granlund
    * David MacKenzie
    * Jim Meyering
    * Mike Parker
    * Paul Rubin

Why is Rodent powerful?
=======================

Transparent access to powerful commands such as "sudo" and "convert" allow the
user to go beyond the scope of ordinary filemanagers. If the user types 
"sudo rm -rf *", Rodent will attempt to do just that. As mentioned previously, 
Rodent is *not* for dummies.


Required packages
=================

Rodent depends on the following packages:

 - libXML-2.4.0 or above
 - Glib 2.20.5 or above
 - GTK+ 2.20.0 or above
 - intltool 0.40 or above
 - libmagic
 - gawk

Rodent uses the following programs:
 - cp
 - mv
 - ln
 - rm
 - touch
 - grep
 - file


Included software:
==================

The following software is included with Rodent:

 - fgr
 - rodent-diff
 - rodent-root
 - rodent-mime
 - rodent-desk
 - rodent
 - rodent-icon-theme


Installation
============

The file 'INSTALL' contains generic installation instructions. For a complete 
system build:

./configure && make && sudo make install

If you do not have a "./configure" script, use "./autogen.sh" to generate it. A full set of autotools is required for this.

Please note that for a complete build from source tarballs, you will require
a full set of autotools and library development headers and m4 macros:
 - libtool-2.2.6 or better
 - automake-1.10 or better
 - autoconf-2.62 or better
 - intltool 0.41.1 or better
 - headers for glib-2.20.5
 - headers for gtk+-2.20.6
 - gawk, libmagic, libzip


Optional programs:
==================

Rodent can optionally use the following programs:

 - tar, compress, zip, gzip, bzip2
 - shred, mount, sudo, file, imagemagick
 - sh, bash, csh, ksh, tsh
 - xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole, Terminal
 - xpdf, sox, mpg123, mplayer
 - gv, gvim, gimp, lyx
 - cdrecord, dvips, gedit, cdplay, dia
 - gkrellm, xkill, abiword
 - rpm, dpkg, pkg_add, pkg_info, pkg_update
 - openoffice
 - gqview
 - dillo

 - anything else you like.

Debugging Support
=================

Rodent currently supports three levels of debugging support, which
can be setup using the configure flags `--with-debug´ or `--with-trace´
(check the output of `configure --help´):


  trace:	This is extremely verbose output and is not recommended 
		unless tracking a particularly hard to trace bug.

  debug:	This should be the default for developer builds, and 
		presents verbose output which must be filtered with
		"grep" in order to be of any real use.

  none: 	This is the default for release builds, and presents the
  		recommended behaviour for end users.
		

Standards compliance
====================

Rodent supports the following standards/specifications:

  * POSIX.1-2001. 
  

How to report bugs?
===================

Bugs should be reported to edscott@xfce.org.


Additional information
======================

Rodent is provided "as is" in the hope that the package is as useful to 
you as it is to me, but with no garantee, as put forth in the GPL-v3 
license.

Notes
=====

Note: Don't forget to run "ldconfig" as root after the "make install" so that the dynamic libraries may be loaded at run time.

Note: FreeBSD users, use gmake in lieu of make, otherwise po directory build will fail.

Note: FreeBSD users, if rodent-diff build fails with an unresolved symbols error, then chdir to Build/lib, do a "make install" and then try again.

GNU's not Unix, but Unix is a beast; its plural form is Unixen.

.