Getting Started

We recommend that to get started using Open GENIE you first follow through one or two of the example programs provided to get a feel for how Open GENIE works. Following this, working through "The Three Wishes" section of the User manual should give you a clearer idea of what facilities Open GENIE provides and how to use them.

Starting up Genie

If you are logged onto a machine directly or have come in by telnet and set up an X display, you should only need to type "genie" (or "opengenie" on VMS systems). If you start your remote sessions via a terminal emulator such as eXceed ot eXcursion, you can start genie directly by using "rexec" to run the "rgenie" command. Set the application command to execute wherever you installed "rgenie" eg

/usr/local/bin/rgenie

The rgenie command takes two parameters: the first is a GCL initialisation file to load on startup, the second is an X windows display name (in case your terminal emulator cannot set this for you). If you wish to set the display, but not the initialisation file, you could use:

usr/local/bin rgenie "" sutekh.nd.rl.ac.uk:0.0

The default initialization file is used in this case.

Online Help

Help in Genie is available in two ways:

• If you don't know a command name, use <Ctrl>K to perform a keyword search of the command descriptions
• If you know the command name, run it with the /HELP qualifier to get a description and list of parameters

File names

Open GENIE takes file names in either VMS style, eg

USER$DISK:[FAA.GENIE]TEST.DAT (on VMS systems only)

or UNIX style, eg

/usr/users/cmm/genie/test.dat

if you are more familiar with the UNIX style of working, file names on the VMS Open GENIE may also be specified as below

/user$disk/faa/genie/test.dat

Typing Commands at the Command Line

Genie provides full command line editing and recall via the arrow (cursor) keys. Comamnds are saved between sessions in a ".genie_history" file in your home directory. The genie command line is based on the GNU readline library and you will find that you can recall and edit previous commands by using the "arrow" cursor keys. Useful additional features are:

• Pressing <TAB> on a partially completed command will complete the command if it is unambiguous, otherwise pressing <TAB> a second time will list possible options.
• Pressing <TAB> also works for partially completed file/directory paths
• Pressing <Ctrl>H on a partially complete command will give a one line summary of all commands matching that pattern
• Pressing <Ctrl>K will start a "command keyword" help search - type in a onw work query, and all commands whose description matches this will be printed
• Pressing <Ctrl>R will start an incremental reverse search of previously typed commands
• Pressing <Ctrl>L will clear the screen and redraw the current line at the top
• Typing !string will execute the last command starting with "string"
• Typing !string:p will find and print the last command starting with "string", but not execute it

Further features are:

• Pressing <Ctrl>_ will undo a last edit/change you made to the command line
• Pressing <Ctrl>X<Ctrl>U will also undo the last edit/change
• Pressing <Ctrl>U will discard the rest of the line line starting from the current cursor position
• Pressing <Ctrl>A will move the cursor to the beginning of line
• Pressing <Ctrl>E will move to end of the current line
• Typing !! will redo last command
• Pressing <Ctrl>X( will start saving text for a keyboard macro (sequence of commands/operations)
• <Ctrl>X) will end a keyboard macro
• <Ctrl>Xe will execute the last saved keyboard macro