4.2 Configuration Files

There is one configuration file per terminal type in GNUIT. The configuration file(s) reside in the user's home directory or (the default versions) in the directory ‘/usr/share/gnuit/’). Files in the user's home directory start with a leading “.”

Their generic name is ‘gnuitrc.TERM’. GNUIT allows each terminal type to have its own configuration file (TERM is the value of the TERM environment variable (e.g ‘vt102’); for the Linux console the configuration file is ‘gnuitrc.console’).

Since most of the key bindings are common to all the terminal types, a configuration file called ‘gnuitrc.common’ is parsed before parsing the normal ‘.gnuitrc.TERM’ configuration file, the later one defining only those keys that are terminal specific. However, if a key binding is redefined in the ‘gnuitrc.TERM’ file, that binding will be used.

If the GNUIT package have been compiled without passing the ‘--enable-terminfo’ option to the configure script and your system has a huge ‘termcap’ database (‘/etc/termcap’), you can copy the termcap definition(s) of your terminal(s) in a file called, lets say ‘.termcap’ and put it in your home directory. After that, set your TERMCAP environment variable to point to it. You should add something like this to your ‘.profile’:

TERMCAP=‘/home/mike/.termcap’

The interactive programs in the GNUIT package can run without such a file, but on systems with huge ‘termcap’ databases, copying the definitions of the most used terminals in a local ‘.termcap’ file will lead to a faster start.

The ‘.gnuitrc.TERM’ is first searched for in the home directory then, if not found, in the directory ‘/usr/share/gnuit/’). (without the leading “.”). The configuration file is structured in sections, each section containing variables in the following format:

	‘variable-name’ = ‘first-field’;‘second-field’; ...

After the ‘variable-name’ at least one space or tab is required. All characters after a ‘#’ are ignored and if you comment a section name, the whole section is ignored.

Section names are enclosed in rectangular brackets (‘[’ and ‘]’). Note that this manual don't include them while refering to section names.

The GNUIT package contains three major programs: gitfm, gitps and gitview. Each one has its own sections in the configuration files. There is also a global setup section called ‘Setup’ that is used by all these programs.

Note that now git has been renamed to gitfm, the corresponding sections have been renamed to GITFM, however for backwards compatibility, the old name (GIT) is still checked if the GITFM section is not found.

This document was generated by Ian Beckwith on March, 1 2009 using texi2html 1.78.