Table of Contents

Change Log

4.7 released on 15-AUG-2021

Important announcement:

• CLEX has moved to GitHub, all links were updated. The new project home is https://github.com/xitop/clex

Problems fixed:

• Fixed a build issue on MacOS. It was related to wide characters in the ncurses library. Patch provided by a maintainer from MacPorts.

4.6.patch10 released on 30-SEP-2020

Problems fixed:

• Under certain rare circumstances (more than 384 different directories visited) the displayed directory names did not match the names stored in the panel.

New or improved functionality:

• The sort panel actions are described more accurately.
• Pressing ctrl-C now leaves the config panel.

4.6.patch9 released on 08-JUN-2018

New or improved functionality:

• Support for GPM mouse and other mice was added when compiled with NCURSES version 6.0 or newer.

4.6.patch8 released on 05-MAY-2018

Problems fixed:

• Some typos were corrected. Thanks to Tobias Frost for sending a patch.

New or improved functionality:

• The configure script was modified so that CLEX compiles without warnings with recent gcc and glibc versions.

4.6.patch7 released on 23-JUN-2017

Problems fixed:

• Non-ASCII - but printable - Unicode characters are now allowed in the xterm window title.
• A backtick character inside of double quotes is now properly quoted.
• Attempts to insert an Alt-key combination into the editing line (i.e. Ctrl-V Alt-X) invoked the function bound to that Alt-key combination. This is now fixed.

New or improved functionality:

• Mouse clicks on the top (bottom) frame scroll the panel one page up (down) respectively. Panel filter control with a mouse was removed in order not to interfere with the new page down function.
• The file rename function does not replace spaces with underscores.
• The Unicode non-breaking space (NBSP) is marked as a special character. Shells do not treat this character as a separator. Commands containing NBSP written by mistake usually fail and the error is not easy to find.
• User and group names up to 16 characters are displayed without truncating in the file panel. (The limit was 9 characters)
• User names are never truncated in the user panel.
• The RPM spec file is now included in the source code tarball. Previously this file has to be downloaded separately or built from a provided template. This extra step is now unnecessary and an RPM package can be built simply with: rpmbuild -tb clex.X.Y.Z.tar.gz

4.6.patch6 released on 31-AUG-2013

Problems fixed:

• Several wide character buffer sizes were computed in incorrect units. No buffer overflows were actually occurring, but such code is not usable if compiled with protection against overflows, e.g. with gcc and FORTIFY_SOURCE=2. Problem noted and a fix proposed by Rudolf Polzer.
• A bug in the file I/O error reporting code of the directory compare function was found by Rudolf Polzer.

New or improved functionality:

• New setting in the sort panel: hidden files can be excluded from the file list.

4.6.patch5 released on 19-JUL-2011

Problems fixed:

• Some keys did not work in the log panel's filter.

4.6.4 released on 21-MAY-2011

Problems fixed:

• Name completion did not expand a single tilde as a home directory.
• A mouseclick on a certain screen area of the help panel could lead to a crash.

New or improved functionality:

• The English documentation was proofread and corrected, the service was kindly contributed by Richard Harris.
• Text file preview function was added.
• The initial working directory for the secondary file panel is now set by a bookmark named DIR2. This replaces the configuration parameter DIR2.
• The initial working directory for the primary file panel can be now set by a bookmark named DIR1.
• New configuration parameter TIME_DATE controls the display of date and time.
• New layout field $g displays the file age.
• Changes to the mouse control were made.
• The recommendation against using alt-R for normal file renaming was dropped.

4.5 released on 24-SEP-2009

Problems fixed:

• Name completion could not complete user and group names containing a dot, comma or a dash character.

New or improved functionality:

• A mouse is supported on xterm-compatible terminals.
• The location of configuration files has been moved again in order to comply with the XDG Specification. The standard place for these files is from now on the ~/.config/clex directory. Use the cfg-clex utility to move the files to the new location.
• There is a new option in the completion panel which allows completion of a name which is a part of a longer word. The option has a self-explaining description: name to be completed starts at the cursor position.
• Configuration parameter C_PANEL_SIZE (completion panel size) cannot be set to AUTO (screen size) because this size is often uncomfortably small.
• The Unicode soft hyphen character is displayed as a control character.
• In the history panel a command separator is automatically inserted into the input line when a command is appended to the end of another command.
• Configuration parameters CMD_Fn accept a new control sequence $~ which disables the Press enter to continue prompt. The control is returned to CLEX immediately after the command execution terminates provided that:
  • the command has not been modified; and
  • the command terminates successfully (exit code zero).
• The $! control sequence can appear anywhere in a configuration parameter CMD_Fn, not only at the end.
• New function: alt-Z places the current line to the center of the panel. People using cluster-ssh might find it useful.

4.4 released on 07-APR-2009

Problems fixed:

• In the help text there were few Unicode characters which are now eliminated because they could not be displayed properly in non-Unicode encodings.

New or improved functionality:

• New function was added: change into a subdirectory showing the contents in the other file panel (alt-X). This function allows a return into the original directory simply by switching panels (ctrl-X).

4.3 released on 29-MAR-2009

Problems fixed:

• A newly added bookmark did not appear on the screen immediately.
• A misleading message Ignoring the DIR2 configuration parameter was logged when the DIR2 was set to HOME.

New or improved functionality:

• The bookmark organizer has been merged with the regular bookmark panel.
• Bookmarks can have descriptive names.
• The current working directory can be bookmarked from the file panel (ctrl-D).
• The B_PANEL_SIZE config parameter was removed.

4.2 released on 15-MAR-2009

Problems fixed:

• In some cases the cfg-clex utility was generating an unusable template for the copy command (F5).
• Under certain circumstances a crash was occurring on exit when CLEX was used over a ssh connection.

New or improved functionality:

• All configuration files now reside in the .clex subdirectory. Use the cfg-clex utility to move the files to new location.

4.1 released on 09-FEB-2009

Problems fixed:

• Usage of uninitialized memory during the start-up has been corrected. It caused a crash on the Apple Mac OS X platform. Systems where CLEX starts normally are not affected by this bug.
• A compilation problem on Apple Mac OS X was fixed.
• The xterm title change feature did not work on remote telnet or ssh connections.

New or improved functionality:

• If a directory comparison is restricted to regular files, then only information about this type of file is displayed in the summary.
• A small program named kbd-test was added. It is a utility for troubleshooting keyboard related problems.

4.0 released on 22-DEC-2008

This is the initial release of the CLEX 4 branch. Main new features are:

• Unicode support has been added.
• Several configuration parameters have been converted to options which are saved automatically.
• The log panel and optional logging to a file for auditing and troubleshooting have been added.
• The cfg-clex utility for initializing or upgrading settings has been added.
• A built-in function for renaming files with invalid or unprintable characters has been added.

Enhancements (compared to previous releases) include:

• Configuring prompt, time format and date format is more flexible.
• The help is not limited to one link per line.
• The user interface of the directory compare function was redesigned.
• Changes in the pattern matching routine were made.
• Panel filtering is now available in two more panels.
• A new tool for inserting control characters into the input line was added.