


	Jafm 0.5 (alpha) -- an icon based X11 desktop program.



This is the first (alpha) release of Jafm (not Just A File Manager),
an icon based desktop program.

Jafm has the following design aims: it should coexist well with any
window manager; complement rather than replace a shell command line
prompt; and look good. It's not as ambitious as other projects like
KDE, but I hope that it will fill a niche for people wanting a
nonthreatening desktop environment.

I have used the SGI desktop as a model for this program, imitation
being flattery. The similarities are starting to embarass me a little
though, so I intend to steer away from this and give the program a
distinct feel of its own.

The program is far from finished but is nonetheless still useful at
its present stage. I'm releasing a version now partly to keep myself
motiviated, and partly to gauge any interest people may have to design
icons for the program. A distinguishing feature of jafm is that icons
are not fixed-size pixmaps, but are dynamically resizable within the
program. The downside is that the usual .xpm icons everyone else uses
don't work for jafm. The icons I have have been (umm) borrowed from SG
or drawn clumsily by myself. I'd really appreciate anyone volunteering
to draw up some uniquely linux-flavoured icons. Unfortunately I
haven't written an icon-editor, but will try to do so soon.

There is a barebones web page with screenshots (seems to be a
prerequisite these days) at
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au:/~rlittlew/jafm/

Jafm uses the Qt library, which is freely available for noncomercial
use for linux. (However, it is not free in the GNU sense). You'll have
to install Qt before you can use this program; for the time being I'm
not distributing any binaries, static or otherwise.  See
http://www.troll.no/ for details on Qt.

Please send me any comments you have about Jafm - especially if you
would like to contribute an icon for your favourite program. Contact
me via email at rupert@maths.usyd.edu.au, and try to include jafm
somewhere in the subject line.

Remember, this is an alpha release: plenty of stuff still needs to be
done. Here is a partial list of features not yet implemented, broken
or incomplete :

- Highlighting of desktop icons is erratic.

- Once an icon is moved to the desktop, you can't drag it
	into another window to make a copy.

- You can't select icons by dragging a 'selection rectangle' 
	(but you can select multiple icons using shift)

- The window won't scroll automagically; you can't drag an icon 
	into a hidden part of the window

- There is almost no error checking for errors in the Applications
	file or .jafmrules file.

- You can't drag new files/programs into the applications window yet.
	However you can modify the appropriate text files manually.

- Renaming a file doesn't mean a new icon is used, when that may be
	appropriate.

- The scrollbars sometimes don't allow you to see the whole window

- The vanish option for deskicons is not implemented.

- In the .jafmrules file, there is no way to escape a semicolon.

- Sometimes dragging an icon onto the desk fails in certain regions.

--- heaps more I can't think of right now.


