ANNOUNCE: GTerm (emacs-style UI)

[Dietmar Maurer <dm vlsivie tuwien ac at>]

What is GTerm
=============

GTerm is a first approach to implement an emacs-style user interface
framework for Gnome applications (see the proposal from Jim Pick at
http://www.jimpick.com/gnome/ui-proposal/). GTerm is based on Gnome MDI
using the notebook mode. If the user starts a gterm aware application
(a gterm module), gterm simply creates a new window in the notebook
instead of creating a new top-level window. This prevents the user from
any interaction with the mouse.

There are two gterm modules at the moment - gsh (Shell) and
gtless. Working with gsh is like working on the linux console, where
the user can switch between several virtual terminals. gtless is mainly
an
example, showing how to support multiple views for one document.

GTerm is most useful for typical unix users, who prefer the keyboard
as primary input device. But beside the fact that there is a small
additional menu (the buffer menu) on the left side, gterm modules
behaves like normal gnome application. So it makes no difference for
the novice user if an application is a gterm module or not.

Status
======

Although the two example modules are quite usable, GTerm is still in
an early development stage. The module API is subject to change, and
things like the status-bar (minibuffer) are not implemented yet. The
primary purpose of this release is to get feedback from you. I'll
continue this work if:

 * there is enough interest (and maybe some volunteers to
 support development).
 * the architecture of the current implementation has no
 general drawbacks (please let me know if you find one).


How to get it
==========

You can download the latest version of GTerm from:

http://nui.vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at/gterm/

(There are also some screenshots)

See the README file for installation instructions