optinst is a shell script which allows you to automatically view a bunch of
files in sequence and decide for each one whether to copy it to a target
directory in original or edited form, or not.

Copyright (c) 2018 Tim Chadburn.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the file "fdl.txt" which is part of this
package.

optinst is a shell script which allows you to automatically view a bunch of
files in sequence and decide for each one whether to copy it to a target
directory in original or edited form, or not.

It is invoked like this:

optinst TARGET-DIR FILE ...

An example invocation would be:

optinst /home/user file1.txt file2.txt

Which programs are used for the viewing and editing is controlled by a
configuration file in the user's home directory whose name is `.snowfall'.
The editor is defined by a line in the file whose first word is `editor',
whose second word is the extension of the file being viewed (the part after
the dot), and whose third word is the name of the program to be used. The
viewer is defined the same way except that the first word is `viewer'.

If FILE has no dot and therefore no extension `default' is used instead of the
extension.

An example .snowfall file would be:

editor txt emacs
editor default emacs
viewer txt less
viewer default less

For each file, optinst will run the viewer program, then ask the user what to
do with the file which has just been viewed. The user must type `y' if he wants
the file to be copied in its original form, `e' to copy it in edited form, and
`n' otherwise. If `e' is selected the editor program will be run to edit the
file after it has been copied. After typing the letter of choice the user must
press Enter.

When optinst is run, if ~/.snowfall does not exist, it will copy a default
.snowfall file to the user's home directory. That default file is exactly the
same as the example file above, so to run optinst one must either have Emacs
installed or alter the configuration file. The default configuration file is
kept in a location which will be something like
`/usr/local/share/snowfall-conf'.