Copyright (C) 1997 by Marcin Dalecki

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   	    	    	    	 This is 
   	    	    	    	 
   	    	    	    MInfo Ver-1.7.19 
   	    	    	    
   	    	    	    
   	    	an Motif widget set based info-file browser.   
                                                                         
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ABSTRACT:
=========

  Info files are the plain ASCII text files used by the GNU online
  documentation system.
  
  Welcome and enjoy the nice feeling of this program, which may
  (accidentally)  appear already very similar to You :-).


REQUIREMENTS:
=============

  To run this program You will need:

    1. Of course X11; preferably R6.1, at least R5.

    2. at least Motif-1.2 ;

       *Note:   Intel Linux-2.x users may use the statically linked 
       version of the  program, and get around without Motif at all...

    3. the xpm library for the handling of colored pixmaps.


  May be  the day isn't far away when it should be possible to compile and
  run this program using the *free* Motif clone LessTif written by some
  brave hearts on the net. (Watch out: http://www.hungry.com !)
  
  Currently the only obstacle, which will prevent it from compiling
  cleanly under lesstif, is the way the structural highlighting is
  implemented around. Please see display.c for details. The problems are
  due to the poor quallity of lesstif's text widget. Since those people
  werent very resposive to some (certainly correct) patches I tried to
  give them from time to time, my personal conclusion is that You
  shouldn't be waiting for lesstif becoming usable.


1. MOTIVATION:
==============

  The documentation provided with the free programs from the GNU suite is
  using the TeX typesetting system to generate:

    * On screen readable/brows-able info files, which are plain ASCII.
    This is where all the indirection information for hyper links goes in.

    * __Very__ nice looking output ready for paper publication, which is
    missing all the cross links and indirection facilies.

  This documentation proved during my programming practice to be
  extraordinary usefull! Therefore I feeled a strong desire to have a nice
  browser for it. 
  
    Yes I know: They are already several of them: one special "editing"
    mode for the emacs, one stand-alone terminal oriented application
    called info, and last *but* least the compleatly useless xinfo.

  Why by the hell did I create just another one? 
  
  Hmm... That's quite simple to answer: 
  
  I HATE emacs like the pest. It's tooooo FAT. The user interface is ugly
  like HELL (Tought not anylonger true as of xemacs, but with this new
  version of minfo, we are once again far ahead in esthetical terms :-). I
  can't never remember the ominous Multi-Multi-Multi key sequences used by
  emacs to accomplish even the simplest operations. I never know what the
  God damn Meta is mapped to on the particular terminal I'm sitting in
  front of (And I even don't want to know it!). Is it: Esc, Meta, Ctrl,
  Alt, AltGr, F12 or whatever? Perhaps a foot button? I can't hold a
  cigarette in one hand and use it...

  The second program mentioned above isn't a true resort for anybody who
  regrets the user interface of the emacs. In fact it's emulating the same
  bogus key sequences which are used by the emacs's info browsing mode.
  Therefore it's simply a non option.

  The third program was what I used before --- after hacking some of the
  most annoying bugs of it out. Getting bored by this, I decided to
  produce something more useful. Thereafter I simply decided to share the
  result with others...
  
  Why the hell did I use Motif for it? Simply because it's the smoothest
  reasonably wide available widget set out there for X11, (despite of
  course of Sun's OpenGL, which is becoming more and more obsolete with
  every new X11 release...). And as I already mentioned above, there are
  some guys out there trying to clone it compleatly! I like the idea about
  having something esthetically satisfactory in the free software world.
  If You are brave enough to dig into deep widget programming mood, I'm
  encouraging You *explicitly*, by providing this app for example, to
  contact them! Tought they showed to be not too responsible to any
  patches I did send them from time to time.



2. INSTALLATION:
================

  There are precompiled executables for Linux-2.1.x in this package, both
  statically and dynamically linked with the proprietary motif lib's. They
  may (should) work with earlier versions of the standard C library as of
  5.4.38 but Your's mileage may vary. The program should too compile out
  of the box on any UNIX platform featuring an ANSI compilant C compiler.
  
  Alternatively You may try to compile it Yourself, by issuing:

	xmkmf -a
	make
	
  If this fails, it is indeed *very* likely that the Motif installation
  You are using is broken in respect of the auto-configuration program
  imake. In case of XFree-3.2 it's sufficient to add the following lines
  to the site.def file in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config:

	#ifndef BUILD_MOTIF
	#define BUILD_MOTIF 1
	#endif

  just after the line containing the following check:

	#ifdef BeforeVendorCF

  In version XFree-3.3 and newer, thyr broke the Motif imake support once
  again.

  As a last resort You may try to compile it by hand, or edit the Makefile
  which is generated by my own configuration; taking all the standard
  header dependencies out. This isn't difficult but simply annoying...
  
  Thereafter You will have the executable called "minfo". The rest of the
  installation is quite simple. Just place minfo in the current path for
  executables. NO bogus X-resource file is needed to make it work. I made
  a lot of efforts to hide this broken concept from the user. If You don't
  think that the resource mechanism is broken, just imagine how far less
  memory hungry, blazingly fast and simple to use or program would X11 be
  without or with far less of it! Or just try to explain somebody how it
  works!
  
  WORNING:
  
    Pleast don't isntall MInfo.ad unless you are willing to synchronize it
    with the built in defaults found as a string array in main.c!



3. COPYRIGHT:
=============

  Please see the COPYRIGHT file which SHOULD be contained in this package.
  (That's the GPL - General Public License as used by the FSF).



4. USAGE:
=========

  Just start the executable and watch out for the buttons B-).  If You are
  not intellectually impaired, You should know how to use it.



5. CONTACTING THE AUTHOR:
=========================

  You can reach me currently at the following e-mail addresses:

	  dalecki@namu01.gwdg.de

  or alternatively

    	  dalecki@math.uni-goettingen.de
    		
  If You like esp. to contribute something to this program, then please
  take note that I'm using indent -kr (THE right way to use it) for
  earlifying the sources. 
  
  Patches, enhancements, thanks, postcards, contract job offers, .... are
  highly welcome! My preffered communication languages are: Polish or
  German.
  
  Oh and please just remember that the code (litaraly C-code) of this
  program is highly optimized. To be more exactly it is optimized in terms
  of *programming* speed. Tought there where some improvement's in quality
  during the past time.

  
  That's all:

					Marcin Dalecki