Introduction
************

This is the README for `multirun', a shell script to display the output of
several programs on the screen at once.

For example, I have a script which is run every time my machine goes online.
It simultaneously sends all queued mail, fetches email from 3 different
accounts, downloads a set of files, uploads another set of files, and
downloads any web pages scheduled for download by the `wwwoffle' cacheing
proxy server.

Since all of these things happen at once, their output mixes on the screen
in a confusing manner.  They do each write to their own log file, but I also
want to be able to see what they are doing *as they do it*, without having
to switch consoles continually.

So, I wrote `multirun'.  This script can run all of those programs and give
each one a separate portion of the screen for its output, giving the effect
of multiple "windows".  It doesn't use ncurses or anything like that, just
`stty', `awk' and the standard Linux console driver.  (`screen' terminals
are also known to work).

For documentation and help, do `multirun --help', which will list all of the
available options.  Alternatively you could look at the supplied example,
`example.sh', for a brief introduction.

Note that you need `bash' to interpret this script.  It has not been tested
on anything previous to bash-1.14.


Author
******

MULTIRUN is copyright (C) 1999 Andrew Wood, and is being distributed under the
terms of the GNU General Public License.  See the file `COPYING'.

You can contact me by email at andrew.wood@poboxes.com or by using the
submission form on my web page at http://www.poboxes.com/andrew.wood/.
The `multirun' home page is at:

  http://www.poboxes.com/andrew.wood/linux/multirun/

The latest version will always be found there.

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